Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Track: Arcadia Invite and Lincoln Dual meet 5-6 April


After a week off for spring break, the Islander Track team was back in full-swing last week. On Thursday we had a dual meet with Lincoln which both the boys' and girls' teams won easily. On Saturday, we took a small group to the Arcadia Invitational for some high-quality competition. The Arcadia Invite (held at Arcadia High School) draws some of the best athletes in the country. This year there were over 700 schools represented. It's a tough meet to qualify for, but four of our athletes made the cut.

The best performance out of our small group was turned-in by Alysah Hickey who set a Personal Record in the high jump with a leap of 5 feet 9 inches. There are two basic divisions at Arcadia, one in the day, one at "night" (actually starts around 4 pm.) The night meet is for the best competitors. Alysah qualified for the night meet in three events, the 100 (in which she's ranked eighth in the state), the High Jump (in which she's ranked second in the state), and the Long Jump (in which she's ranked first in the state).  Because all three events went off within an hour of one another, we asked that she be allowed to compete in the day meet for the high jump. Although there were several girls with marks of 5-6, Alysah was still a bit of a ringer as she had cleared 5-8 at Mt. Carmel. After 5-3 there were only two girls left with Jada Sims from Xavier College Prep (Phoenix AZ) having the best day of her life by hanging in and clearing 5-7. Sims went out at 5-9, and Alysah made the height on her second try. Because our school record is 5-10.25, she had the bar set at 5-10.5. When you're the only competitor left you get to choose your next height. Otherwise, the bar goes up in 2-inch increments. She nearly made it on her second try. After the competition, group shots and selfies were taken with all the high jump judges. The night high jump was won by Rachel Glen out of Long Beach Wilson at 5-8. Glen is currently the state leader at 5-11.  Ian Hurlburt was a surprise state meet qualifier in the 800-meter run last season, less than a half-second off of Erik Armes' school record of 1:55.22. This season he's won every race he's entered with each a little faster than the previous. Because of the level of competition, and his tendency to stay with the pack and outkick everyone at the finish, he won his heat with a school-record time of 1:55.15. Because he's 2.65 seconds faster than the next ranked San Diego section runner, he may have to start leading his local races to continue to improve. Teresa Perez (also the 800-meter school record holder) improved on her season's best with a time of 2:18.43. Ruthie Grant-Williams competed in the Heptathlon with a Personal Record of 4017 points. Along the way, she bettered her School Record in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 15.34. She's currently ranked second in the San Diego Section in that event. The "Hep" is a 2-day event consisting of the 100-meter dash, Shot Put, High Jump, 100-meter hurdles, 200-meter dash, Javelin Throw, and 800-meter run.

The dual meet with Lincoln, because of the speed of their boy sprinters, and I suspect a bit of tail-wind, produced quite a few Personal Records for the 100 and 200-meter dashes. In the 100 Nicholas Dunn ran 11.36 for third and Shane Alihan placed fourth with 11.72. Other finishers under 13 seconds were Leo Adams (12.16 PR), Ben Cahill (12.26 PR), Ryan Meachum (12.32 PR), Haden Dunlap (12.48 PR), Kainoa Potter (12.50), and Zakaree Kevicki (12.82). In the 200 our top finisher was Dunn with a PR of 23.24. Hurlburt, getting in a speed workout before Arcadia, was third with a PR of 23.50. Other PR's under 27 seconds were by Alihan (24.56), Cahill (25.16), and Jesse Vernallis (26.14). We surprised Lincoln by winning the boys 4x100 in a time of 45.07 to their 45.22. The runners were Alihan, Hurlburt, Cahill, and Dunn. This time is only .85 seconds off our school record. The boys were able to easily win the meet because Lincon has no distance runners of note. Luke Klingenberg, Chris Russel, and Nicholas Inzunza swept the 1600 with times of 4:55, 5:10, and 5:11. Klingenberg and Russel went 1-2 in the 800 with 2:12 and 2:20. Brad Busby and Danny Mineo cruised to a 1-2 finish in the 3200 with times of 11:07 and 11:12. The Lincoln boys entered no hurdlers so Jack Miller won both the 110 and 300 hurdle races. Potter picked-up second-place points in the 400 with 57.98. Kobuk Van Houten and Liam Casey went 1-3 in the high jump with 5-8 and went 2-3 in the long jump with 17-8 and 16-11. For the first time in several years, we have a pretty good throws team, despite not having a discus facility to practice at. Dunlap won the shot put with 35 feet 6 inches. Joseph Whalen was third with 32-2 followed by Nate Kim (28-11), Jack Weisbrod (27-1.5), and Andrew Needham (27-0.5). In the discus, the order was Weisbrod (2nd with 80-7), Kim (3rd with 80-6), Whalen (73-9), and Needham (72-0).

For the girls, Hickey ran only the 100-meter dash as a tune-up for the Arcadia meet. She won with a time of 12.36 followed by Abigail Whittemore in 13.46, and Daniela Rassvetaieff in 14.56.  Rassvetaieff also placed 2nd in the 200 with 30.42. As with their boys' team, Lincoln has no distance runners of note. Madden Hundley, Abigail Hundley, and Annie Holland swept the 800 running together with times all around 2:37. Sofia Van Arsdale ran the 1600 for the first time along with the boys' race with a time of 5:32.  She also ran the 300 meter hurdles for the first time with an excellent time of 50.53, over 8 seconds in front of the first Lincoln girl. Jessica Ehret easily won the 3200 with 12:51. We have only one girl thrower, Victoria Perez. Perez had to sit out the last period because of an interdistrict transfer. She has PRs of 34 feet 4 inches in the shot put and 107 feet 4 inches for the discus. These were while she was at North Harrison High School in Ramsey Indiana. Her shot put PR is well over our school record, and both her shot put and discus marks are better than anyone else in our league. She won both the shot and discus with throws of 31-0 and 105-3 respectively.  Other points were scored by Sydney Zoehrer who won the high jump with 4-6; Regina Czerewko who won the pole vault with 6-3; Grant-Williams who won the 100 hurdles in 16.14; and Whittemore who won the triple jump with 28-5. Showing a bit of versatility in the jumps, Czerewko was second in both the triple jump and long jump with Whittemore placing third in the long jump.

No comments:

Post a Comment