The last
weekend of April is the busiest part of the season with two popular events that
have been around for a long time. For years there was a boys only Friday Night
event at Orange Glen High School that was a Pre-League and CIF Championship
showcase meet. Around 2006 it morphed into the Escondido Invite at Escondido
High School, and in 2008 girls competition was added.
The county Frosh/Soph
"championship" meet, for as long as I can remember, was the next day
at El Capitan High School. Often there was a rodeo on the same grounds which
made the parking lot and air quality rather interesting. Sometimes it seemed
you were running with the cows. Since 2013 it's been held at Del Norte High
School.
The first events for us at Escondido were the girls high jump,
shot-put, and discus throw, all at 3:30 PM. The shot and discus, for us, were
at the same time because our only female thrower, Victoria Perez, qualified for the Invite section of the
discus and the second section of the shot. Fortunately, she was able to get her
discus throws in before her flight for the shot came up. She placed 11th
overall in the discus and won her section in the shot which ranked her 12th
overall for that event. Alysah Hickey and Ruthie Grant-Williams were two of the
favorites going into the high jump with Torrey Pine's Jade Cany a consistent
jumper with a 5-foot 4-inch PR to her credit this season. With a small field in
the Invitational section of the high jump, the event should have taken less
than an hour to complete. However, there was a problem with the standards.
After nearly every second or third jump, and sometimes when an athlete was
getting ready to jump, they collapsed back to a lower height, and the bar had
to be reset and remeasured. This delayed
the event to the point where both of our jumpers had to leave to run in the
4x100 relay just as the bar went up to 5 feet 5 inches. By the time they came
back, Jade had PR'd at 5-5 and our girls had to jump with tired legs. Ruthie
didn't make the height and placed third while Alysah cleared 5-5 and the next height
of 5-7. Jade didn't clear 5-7, so she placed second. Alysah didn't make 5-9,
but her jump of 5-7 broke the meet record by 2 inches and earned her the title
of girls' field athlete of the meet. Joining our two high jumpers in the 4x100
relay were Madison Shanks and Abby Whittemore. They nearly pulled off a win,
only three-tenths of a second behind Olympian. Their time of 48.69 was fast
enough to break their school record set earlier in the season. Madison came
back to place 4th in the second heat of the 400 with a time of 1:01.5, Ruthie
placed fourth in the Invite heat of the 100 hurdles in 15.50, and Alysah easily
won the Invite heat of the 100 in 12.18.
Both Teresa Perez and Madden Hundley set Personal Records in the 1600
meter run. Teresa's time of 5:03.67 set a new school record, and Madden's time
of 5:15.63 was two seconds faster than her previous best. The old 1600 record
of 5:03.82 was set by Katherine Wingert in 2004 at the CIF prelims. We had
hoped that Ian Hurburt would face some quality competition in the boys' 800
from Everett Steward of Long Beach Poly. It didn't pan-out because Steward
scratched and Ian's only competition consisted of runners from San Diego
schools. He won easily with a time of 1:57.11.
In the Frosh/Soph meet, we entered four freshmen: three girls and one
boy. Abigail Hundley knocked a few seconds off her best time with a 5:24.68
effort in the 1600. Jessica Ehret fulfilled her goal to break 12
minutes in the 3200 with a time of 11:58.74. Max Fuller placed fourth in the 400
with 52.94. Sofia Van Arsdale learned a valuable lesson about pace control in
the 800 with a second place finish in the 800 with a time of 2:21.94. Coming
into the race, Sofia was ranked second behind Christian's Jenna Rubidoux, who
had a breakthrough race the week before, clocking 2:16.4. I knew that Sofia could run that fast, so I
told her not to be intimidated. But she took it to the next level. At the gun, she sprinted to a 10-meter lead
and hit the first 200 in around 31 seconds. At the 400, I had her split
at 62 and change. She held the lead through the 600, but in the last 60 meters
the proverbial bear jumped on her back, and Rubidoux caught her just before the
finish. Hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Next time she'll run smarter.
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