Nicole Crutchfield first fell in love with track and field her sophomore year of high school, when she decided to put her natural born speed to use on the rubber turf.

The women’s track and field team won the Southern Cali­fornia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Crown, finishing off a perfect 8-0 season, while the men placed second Saturday at Occidental.

The Leopards took a break from scoring competition Saturday at the Pomona-Pitzer Track and Field Invitational.

La Verne’s Ortmayer Stadium was filled with an active home crowd Saturday as students, faculty and friends cheered on the track and field team against SCIAC rivals Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Caltech.

The track and field teams had no trouble with their Southern California Intercollegiate Ath­letic Conference opponents in the opening Quad Meet, winning 24 out of the 38 events Saturday at Pomona-Pitzer’s Strehle Track.

La Verne’s track and field team raced to victory on Saturday, placing first in 17 events at the first invitational hosted by the Leopards.

It has been more than six years since a track and field event has taken place on the La Verne campus. On Saturday, La Verne’s track and field team placed first in 14 events overall, hosting its first home meet since 2006 on the revamped Ortmayer Stadium.

After nine months of anticipation the refurbishment of Ortmayer Stadium is finally complete.

The sophomore anthropology major has been pole vaulting for five years and is this year’s Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Confer­ence champion in the event.

The men’s and women’s track and field teams competed at Saturday’s Occidental Invitational in hopes of improving their personal records weeks before heading to the NCAA Division III Championships.