PHS grad ends college career as champion

Petaluma High graduate Ted Scranton is Big West Conference decathlon champion.|

After 17 years of school and more than 20 years of sports competition, Petaluma High School graduate Ted Scranton is making a dramatic change to the work world.

Scranton recently graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and he has taken a position as a manufacturing manager with Blue Diamond Almonds in Sacramento. He is probably finished with his sports career - there just aren’t that many opportunities to continue competing in the decathlon.

As Scranton leaves competition, he leaves on top as the Big West Conference decathlon champion.

He won the title at the conference league meet, defeating UC Santa Barbara’s Tyler Nelson in an exciting duel waged over two days that came down to the final event, the 1,500-meter run.

Scranton set up the final showdown with outstanding performances in two of his strongest events, the discus and the javelin. He qualified for the state meet in the discus while at Petaluma High and showed he retained his strength and skill by winning the event at 152 feet, 10 inches. He then finished second in the javelin at 179-10½.

Even though the javelin is not a high school event at Petaluma High, Scranton says it is his favorite decathlon event. “There is something primeval about it,” he explained. “I wasn’t very good at it at first, but I got better once I understood you have to throw it through the point so it takes off.”

After the decathlon, he went on to finish third in the javelin during the regular conference meet.

Scranton’s javelin throw gave him a slender 6,548 to 6,443 lead over Nelson heading into the 1,500-meter run. It was no contest. The Petaluman finished second in a time of 4 minutes, 53.94 seconds, while Nelson ran 5:10.41. Scranton finished with 7,143 points, the sixth best in Cal Poly history, while Nelson ended with 6,944.

The conference meet probably marks the end of Scranton’s track career, a passion he has been pursuing since Petaluma Junior High School. In high school, under the coaching of Trojan throwing coach Reggie Pierson, he became one of the best throwers ever at PHS, reaching the state meet in his senior season.

In college, he discovered he was also a “pretty good” sprinter, worked hard to master the javelin and began working on the decathlon.

He steadily improved his score, finishing third as a sophomore and improving his score as a junior while finishing fourth.

Before his senior track season, he injured his arm and couldn’t practice from January through March. When he did come back, he was ready for a championship performance.

He said he will miss the track competition, but most of all he will miss his teammates. “They are my best friends,” he explained.

Scranton carried on a family tradition by attending Cal Poly. His father, Ron, played football for the Mustangs, and his mother also went to college there. One uncle competed in track and field and another was a star pitcher on the baseball team.

And, he wasn’t the only Scranton on the Cal Poly track team this spring. Sister Allison Scranton, like her big brother, was a state meet participant while at Petaluma High, finishing fourth in the 2015 meet.

Originally at Utah State, where she had a strong freshman year, with the eighth-best discus in school history (161-9½) and also strong marks in the shot and hammer throw, she decided it wasn’t the right fit and transfered to Cal Poly.

“She decided that Utah just wasn’t the right place for her,” Ted said.

Now, while Ted has moved on to the work world, Allison has an opportunity to add another Scranton’s name to the Cal Poly sports history book.

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