Islander Track & Field Head Coach George Green updated The Coronado Times with this detailed recap of the successful 2017 season. The championship meets will start later this week.
The season got started in January with several of our runners qualifying for the State Winter Championships held at Arcadia High School in Cerritos on February 11th. Prior to that there were several qualifying meets.
To qualify, an athlete had to hit a standard time or distance at one of 16 qualifying meets held around California this winter. Unfortunately this season, none of the qualifying meets were local.
Click on a meet-name-link below to jump to that meet’s details.
- January 14 – Laguna Beach High School
- January 21 – Irvine High School
- January 28 – Corona Qualifier
- February 4 – Great Oak
- February 11 – State Winter Championships
- March 4 – Mt. Carmel Field & Distance Invite – First meet of regular season
- March 11 – Bronco Invite
- March 16 & 18 – Crawford & Elmer Runge Invite
- March 23 – Lincoln Dual Meet
- March 25 – Mt. Carmel Invite
- April 1 – Arnie Robinson Invite
- April 6 & 7 – Clairemont & Kearny (6th) and Arcadia Invitational (6th & 7th)
- April 15 – Jaguar Invitational
- April 20 – Mission Bay & Madison Double Dual Meet
- April 27 – Christian & Crawford
- April 28 – Escondido Invite
- April 29 – County Frosh/Soph Meet
Laguna Beach, January 14
One of the first qualifying meets was at Laguna Beach High School on January 14th where Alysah Hickey qualified for the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.94. She also qualified in the high jump with a height of five feet, four inches. Both marks were well better than the standards of 8.55 for the 60 and five feet even for the high jump.
Hickey’s teammate and training partner, Ruthie Grant-Williams, qualified for the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 10.22, which was over a second faster than the standard of 11.30. It’s not surprising that they easily qualified, as Hickey holds the school record for the 100-meter dash at 12.03 and was the CIF Division II Champ at the high jump last season with a clearance of five feet, six inches. Grant-Williams tied the school record for the 100 hurdles last season with a time of 15.88.
Irvine High School, January 21
The next weekend in a meet held at Irvine High School, Charlie Winn and Teresa Perez both qualified for the 600-meter dash. Winn placed second in his heat with a time of 1:26.74 while Perez won her race in 1:42.46. The standards for the 600 are 1:30 for boys and 1:44.5 for girls. Perez also qualified for the 3000-meter run with a time of 10:59 which is over 20 seconds faster than the standard of 11:20. Again it comes as no surprise that these two athletes qualified. Winn was one of last season’s top San Diego Section 800-meter runners with a time of 1:56.53 to his credit. Perez was the league champ in the 400-meter run in track and the Eastern League Cross Country champ last season. She possesses sub-60 second speed in the 400 and clocked 18:36 for 5,000 meters last fall.
Corona Qualifier, January 28
On January 28th at the Corona qualifier, we advanced both a Girls’ 4×200 Relay Team and a Sprint Medley Relay Team, which includes legs of 100,100, 200, and 400 meters.
In both events the runners were Madison Shanks, Ruthie Grant-Williams, Alysah Hickey, and Teresa Perez. Shanks, Grant-Williams, and Hickey are members of Coronado High School’s record-setting 4×100 relay team from last season. Their times were 1:52.15 for the Sprint Medley Relay and 1:49.56 for the 4×200. Hickey also placed second in the 60-meter dash with an excellent time of 7.73 and Grant-Williams clocked 9.91 for the 60-meter hurdles. Both girls had previously qualified in these events. The qualifying time for the Sprint Medley Relay was 2:00 and for the 4×200 it was 1:54, so both times were well-under the standard to advance. That weekend Grant-Williams and Hickey participated in the New Balance Indoor Classic in Boise, Idaho. At that meet Hickey ran a speedy time of 7.84 in the 60 meter dash on the way finishing 4th overall. She added a 3rd place finish in the high jump at 5 feet 2 inches and a 5th place finish with her track club in the 4×200. Grant-Williams placed 7th in the 60 meter hurdles with a time of 7.84.
Great Oak Qualifier, February 4
At the Great Oak qualifier for the State Winter Championships on February 4th both Luke Klingenberg and Madden Hundley qualified. Klingenberg advanced in both the 1500 and 3000 meter runs with times of 4:15.09 and 9:19.79 respectively. Hundley ran 5:15.55 in the 1500 to qualify.
Winter Championships, February 11
At the championships on February 11th, one of our best events of the day was the girls’ sprint medley relay. Our girls won the first heat with a time of 1:51.91 but there were 2 slightly faster times in the 2nd heat posted by Great Oak in 1:51.49 and St. Mary’s Academy in 1:51.85. Too bad all three schools weren’t in the same heat as there was only .42 seconds difference between 1st and 3rd. Grant-Williams ran the lead leg. She passed to Shanks for the 2nd 100 meter leg. Hickey ran the 200 and passed to Perez for the 400 meter anchor leg. The foursome also run in the 4×200 where they again won their heat with a time of 1:47.39 but fell to 5th after the second heat was run. La Sierra took that one with a time of 1:44.21 followed by Corona in 1:44.7, Temecula Valley in 1:45.75, and Saint Mary’s Academy in 1:46.16.
Each of the girls ran other events. Hickey placed 6th in the high jump with 5-1 and 9th in the 60 meter dash with a time of 7.85. Perez clocked 1:39.86 for the 600 meter run and 10:55.20 for the 3k. Shanks ran 8.53 for the 60 meter dash while Grant-Williams ran 10.10 for the 60 meter hurdles. Perez’s time for the 600 equates to an 800 meter time of around 2:17. That time would have ranked her among the top 10 in San Diego last season.
The two boys who ran were Charlie Winn and Luke Klingenberg. Winn placed 5th in the 600 meter run with a time of 1:24.95. Converted to 800 meters this is around 1:56.5. Look for him to be among the top half milers in the county this season. Klingenberg clocked 4:06.67 for the 1500 meter run. Converted to 1600 meters, the standard distance run in high school, it’s around 4:26. This is a very fast time for pre-season track. Not to be outdone, Renee Phillips entered the 3000 meter run at the Rossi Relays put on by Claremont-Mudd Scripps. She ran in the fast heat and responded with a time of 10:22.58. Converted to the 3200 meter run that’s contested at high school meets it’s around 11:05.
Mt. Carmel Field & Distance Invite, March 4
Our first official meet of the season was the Mt. Carmel Field and Distance Invite.
For the last few years this meet has been the come-out event for San Diego’s distance runners, most of whom never stop training, and the field event kids, most of whom are just getting started. Every year the distance giant Great Oak located in Riverside comes down in mass and dominates the meet. With a student body of over 3500 they have a lot of talent to choose from. Still, our distance runners did well at the Sun Devil Stadium. Most track meets have heat after heat of sprints. This one has heat after heat of distance events. Sophomore Teresa Perez was entered in the 7th and fastest heat of the girls’ 800 meter run where she led most of the way but couldn’t quite match Great Oak’s Sydney Belus at the finish. She was close though and posted a time of 2:22.20 to the winner’s mark of 2:20.94. Great Oak also placed third out of over 129 runners. In the boys’ 800 Charlie Winn and Ian Hurlburt placed 3rd and 4th behind Great Oak’s Solomon Fountain and El Camino’s Moses Crawford out of 143 finishers. Their times were 2:01.23 and 2:01.62 respectively. In the boys’ 1600 Luke Klingenberg cracked 4:30 in his first outing of the season by placing 10th overall with a time of 4:29.04. Great Oak took the top two places out of 217 finishers. Madden Hundley placed 12th with a time of 5:31.70 in the girls’ varsity heats of the 1600. Great Oak went 1-2-3 in that one. In the 3200 meter runs Jasmine Rippey placed 6th in the girls’ event with a time of 12:07.78 while Spencer Busby and Danny Mineo placed 20th and 28th in the boys’ heats with times of 10:35.93 and 10:43.61. Of course, both the Distance Medley Relays were won by Great Oak but we held our own. In the girls DMR Hundley led off with the 1200-meter leg (3 laps) with a time of around 4:05. Ruthie Grant-Williams clocked 63.5 for the 400 leg. She passed off to Perez for the 800 who nearly matched her open 800 time with 2:23.3. Renee Phillips ran the 1600-meter anchor leg in around 5:19.7 to place 2nd with a new school record time of 12:51.84. Third place went to Torrey Pines in 13:03.8. The old record of 12:57.73 was set in 2015 at the Frosh/Soph meet by Charlotte Wampler, Christine Wastila, Kayla Bierschbach, and Rippey. The boys placed 6th in their DMR with a time of 11:13.10. Winn ran the 1200 leg followed by Chris Russell for the 400, Hurlburt for the 800, and Klingenberg for the 1600. In the field events Alysah Hickey tied for 1st with Mission Hills’ Asia Smith with both clearing 5-2. Grant-Williams cleared 4-10 in a 6-way tie for 7th. In the boys’ field events Joseph Whalen PR’d in both the shot put and discus with tosses of 29-3 and 55-10.
Bronco Invite, March 11
Our first big invite of the season was the Bronco Invite on March 11th at Rancho Bernardo High School.
I thought that our girls’ 4 x 100 and Sprint Medley Relay teams would be competitive at the Bronco Invite but I didn’t expect a sweep of the fast heats. But that’s what happened. In both races, we substituted one of our faster runners who couldn’t be at the meet but thanks to our rocket girl, Alysah Hickey, we made both races very exciting for the crowd. In the 4×100 Ruthie Grant-Williams ran the lead leg. She handed off to freshman Abigail Whittemore who passed to Avery Dozier who handed off to Alysah Hickey. Up to this point in the race we were lost in the crowd and Hickey got the baton in 5th place with Helix way out in front. With about 25 meters to go Hickey had passed everyone but the Helix anchor who she out-leaned at the finish line to win by 2/100 of a second in 50.75. The other featured sprint event was the Frosh/Soph Sprint Medley Relay (SMR) consisting of two 100 meter legs, a 200, and a 400 meter anchor leg. Normally we’d run either Madison Shanks in the 400 or our 800 meter runner Teresa Perez as both have sub-60 speed. However Shanks wasn’t at this meet and Perez had just run the 800 in the previous race. To top it off Dozier had a sore ankle so we had to keep her out. Rather than have Perez come back to run a 400 so soon after her 800 meter run we put her in Dozier’s spot and she ran the 2nd 100. Since Grant-Williams runs the 300 hurdles she was elected to run the 400 meter anchor leg. We were in the 3rd of three heats. The last heat is supposed to be the fast heat but in the first heat San Diego High School had posted a fast time. Whittemore led off, she passed to Perez, who passed to Hickey. Hickey came out of the crowd and turned on the after-burners down the home stretch of her 200 meter leg to give Grant-Williams about a 10 meter lead. She held on to enough of it to post a time of 1:56.64 to a closing Rancho Bernardo runner who finished in 1:56.84. San Diego’s time of 1:56.77 was fast enough to place them in front of RB when the results were combined. Even though the Islander’s time was fast enough to top the leader board at this early stage of the season we had a faster time at the California Winter Classic which currently holds the number one spot. That time was 1:51.91 with Perez, Grant-Williams, Hickey, and Shanks doing the honors. It was still early in the season but the girls’ 4×100 time currently topped the leader-board as well. I mentioned that Perez ran the 800. She posted a great early-season time of 2:17.94 behind Kiley McCarthy from Carlsbad who ran 2:14.54 and McKenna Brown from La Costa Canyon who clocked 2:15.23. These were the top three times in the county at that point this season. Hickey blew the field away in 100 with a 1.5 MPH head wind blowing in her face. Still she managed to run a section leading time of 12.37. Grant-Williams ran both the 100 and 300 meter hurdles. In the short hurdles, she won her heat with a time of 16.28 which placed her 3rd overall. In the long hurdles, she placed 7th overall with a time of 49.77. Running on tired legs, Perez placed 5th in the 400 with a time of 62.08. In the girls’ 1600 Renee Phillips ran 5:13.68 for 2nd place followed by Madden Hundley who clocked 5:34.75 for 6th. Jasmine Rippey placed 7th in the 3200 with a time of 11:46.75. Because of SATs only 2 boys were entered. Luke Klingenberg, possibly fighting a virus, ran 4:41.72 for the 1600 and Cole Mullins broke 5 minutes in the frosh 1600 with a time of 4:57.28.
The previous day (Friday) our Pole-Vault team plus a couple others competed in the Crusader Classic at Calvin Christian High school. Kelli Law won the girls’ vault with a 9-foot effort while Alex Cheever and Dakota Summers placed 2nd and 3rd with marks of 11-6 and 10-10.5. Rileah Ramirez won the girls’ high jump with 4 feet 11 inches and Michael O’Conner clocked 6:31 in the 1600.
Icebreaker Meet with Crawford, March 16 and Elmer Runge Invite, March 18
The league meet wasn’t a scoring meet that counted toward the league standings, but rather an ice-breaker, mostly for the new kids on the team who haven’t been attending the invitational meets. Some team members also attended the Elmer Runge Classic hosted by Patrick Henry on Saturday. At the Runge Classic, we took only three girls, none of whom were part of our distance crew. Those in that group were either training through or had other obligations.
The Girls we brought to Runge accounted for 50 points by winning every event they entered. Alysah Hickey won both the 100 and 200 sprints in very convincing fashion with times of 12.17 in the 100 and 25.69 in the 200. These two efforts won her the Girls’ Track Athlete of the Meet award. Ruthie Grant-Williams easily won both the 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles with times of 15.97 and 47.36. The 100-hurdle time was only 9/100’s of a second off her own school record. The 300-meter hurdle time was a personal record by nearly a second and a half, and at the fastest time run in San Diego at this point in the season. She’s now less than two seconds off the school record of 45.37 and Ruthie appears to be closing in on it fast. Our third girl was Kelli Law, who won the pole vault.
The top marks for the Boys were in the 800-meters, which featured a 1-2 finish by Charlie Winn and Ian Hurlburt, who both dipped under two minutes with times of 1:59.49 and 1:59.60. It’s been some time since we’ve had two guys, both under two minutes in that event.
The biggest winning margin was supplied by sophomore Luke Klingenberg who won the 3,200-meter run with a time of 9:59.89, over 32 seconds in front of the second-place finisher. Other athletes scoring points for us were Spencer Busby who placed third in the 1,600 with a time of 4:46.75; Danny Mineo, who finished sixth in the 1,600 with 4:50.84; Cole Mullins, third in the Frosh/Soph 1,600 with 4:55.58; Alex Cheever, fourth in the pole vault with a vault of 11 feet, seven inches; and Dakota Summers who placed seventh in the pole vault at 10 feet, one inch. With all the first place finishes we managed to place fourth overall in the combined scoring with just a handful of athletes.
The most notable marks in the dual meet on Thursday were a hand-timed 100-meter dash by Hickey of 11.9 followed by a hand-time in the 200 of 25.3. Hand-times in the sprints can’t be used for ranking purposes but those times are among the best in the county. Once again Grant-Williams dominated the hurdles with a time of 15.8 in the 100 and 49.4 in the 300. The 100-meter hurdle time was under her school record mark but again, it was a hand-time and can’t count as a new record. Lexia Hall was a big surprise for us in the throws with a mark of 25-3 in the shot put and 81-6 in the discus. This was her first time ever throwing and will improve on both of those marks a lot as the season progresses.
Bree Humphrey had a good day with wins in both the long jump and triple jump with marks of 14 feet, six inches and 30 feet, two inches. Madden Hundley and Claire Morris clocked 2:31.5 and 2:35.9 in the 800-meters, with Lucy Holland and Helen Byron placing third and fourth in 2:52.9 and 2:54.2. The Girls won all the rest of the distance events, but they were just working out. Rileah Ramirez won the high jump at four feet, 10 inches.
For the Boys, Hurlburt and Klingenberg finished one-two in the 800-meters with mid-2:02 times. Hurlburt came back in the 200 with a 24.1 mark to place second; Lance Lorenz was third with 24.5; Busby won the 1,600-meters in 4:56, followed by Mineo in third with 4:59, and Mullins in fourth with 5:02.
Lincoln Dual Meet, March 23 and Mt Carmel Invite, March 25
We had our first league meet on March 23rd against Lincoln High School at home followed by the Mt. Carmel Invitational at Mt. Carmel High School. As expected the Hornet girls were no match for us. The boys’ meet, however, was pretty even but we prevailed because of a superior cadre of mid-distance and distance runners, an unexpected win in the shot put, and a pole-vaulter who tried a couple of new events. The Mt. Carmel Invite is an important event because it’s the last meet for athletes to improve their best marks to qualify for one of California’s elite meets, the Arcadia Invitational. We sent a small group to this meet, several of whom were trying to improve on their qualification marks.
We had two overall winners at Mt. Carmel with Alysah Hickey taking the high jump competition with a leap of 5 feet 6 inches and Charlie Winn winning the 800 meter run with a time of 1:57.35. Winn’s time ranked him 3rd in the county at that juncture while Hickey’s mark ranked her second by one half inch. That’s a little ranking game that high jump coaches play… raise the bar by a half inch over the standard 2 inch increments to move up in the ranks. Once you’re the last jumper in a meet you have the option to set the height of the bar until you miss three times. Hickey went for a big PR of 5-8 rather than “inch” her way up in the ranks. Rileah Ramirez placed 6th with a leap of 5 feet even. Personal bests were logged by Ruthie Grant-Williams in the 100 hurdles, Luke Klingenberg in the 1600-meter run, and Madden Hundley in the girls’ 1600-meter run. The last few meters of Grant-William’s race was reminiscent of the 400 meter dive/fall by Shaunae Miller in the last Olympics 400 meter run to beat Allyson Felix at the tape. Over the last hurdle, it appeared that Simone James from Horizon had a slight lead on Grant-Williams. Later Ruthie told me that she was prepared to emulate the dive/fall by Miller to win her heat. It turned out that she didn’t have to as James, perhaps by accident, executed her own version. However, she came up a bit short of the finish lane to finish last overall, once she got back up. Ruthie went on to win her heat in 15:75 which was not only a PR but it also broke the tie for our school record that she shared with Camille Wilson. Klingenberg’s 1600 time of 4:26.20 was a PR by only 1/100 of a second but it moved him up in this year’s ranks to 11th. Since he’s only a sophomore, that’s a great result among ranks dominated by upper classmen. Hundley’s time of 5:18.44 was a big breakthrough. She was becoming frustrated by a string of results in the low 5:30 range and had hoped to finally get under the 5:30 barrier. She went into her race ranked as one of the slower runners and came out looking great among the top finishers. Our girls’ 4×100 relay team consisting of Grant-Williams, Abigail Whittemore, Perez, and Hickey suffered from marginal handoffs but still managed to place 7th overall with a time of 50.21. Other notable performances at the meet were a nice 100 time by Hickey of 12.06, an 800 time by Perez of 2:20.61, Jasmine Rippey’s 3200-meter time of 11:33.06, a 5:09.86 run in the 1600 by Renee Phillips, a 9-2 Clearance in the pole vault by Kelli Law and an 11-8 vault by Alex Cheever.
As mentioned above, at the Lincoln dual meet, the girls scored 78 points to Lincoln’s 35 but the boys’ meet was close with Coronado netting 65 points to the Hornets’ 59 tally. In addition to the pole vault, our strength on the boys’ team lies in our mid-distance and distance runners, all of whom also run Cross Country. Although Lincoln placed 1-2 in the 100 meter dash we won every other non-hurdle running event. We came very close to a 2nd place finish in the 100 with pole vaulter, Cheever, trying the event for the first time and coming up a hair short with a time of 11.62. He also tried long jumping for the first time and just missed winning by a quarter of an inch with a leap of 18 feet 2.75 inches. He learned to triple jump a few minutes before the event and took those first-place points. Of course, he won the pole vault with a mark of 11-6. We would have put him in a few other events but CIF rules dictate that you can only participate in four per meet. Ian Hurlburt ran the 200 for the first time and posted the best time of the day with 24.3. He also had a pair of 2nd place finishes behind Charlie Winn in the 400 who ran 52.6 to Hurlburt’s time of 52.8, and Luke Klingenberg in the 800 who clocked 2:04.5 for the win. Klingenberg didn’t run the 1600 to save his legs for Mt. Carmel but Cole Mullins and Tyler Buckley went 1-2 with times of 5:02 and 5:19.9. Spencer Busby and Danny Mineo went 1-2 in the 3200 . Other boys under 12.5 for the 100 were Shane Alihan with 11.9, Dillon Calhoun with 12.0, Kainoa Potter (12.1), and Ben Cahill (12.46). Boys under 26 for the 200 were Cahill (25.7), Alihan (25.8), and Potter (25.9). Dakota Summers placed 2nd in the pole vault with 11-2. In the throws, we conceded all the points in the discus because we don’t have a discus facility and they threw at Lincoln. However, in the shot-put we gained a point by placing 1st and 3rd compared to the 2nd place finish by Lincoln. Josh Wink won with a toss of 32-7 and Joe Whalen was 3rd with 28-5. Lincoln won the 4×100 relay and we won the 4×400 relay with our distance runners.
In the girls’ competition I pretty much let everyone compete in the events they wanted because it was obvious there would be no problem with our winning the team score. Also, some were taking it easy to be fresh for the Mt. Carmel meet. As usual Hickey won the 100, 200, and High Jump. Perez tried the 100 and 200 for the first time and turned-in times of 13.24 and 26.95. Grant-Williams won both the 100 and 300 hurdles and placed 2nd in the high jump with 4-10 behind Ramirez who cleared 5 feet even. Natalya Gomez won the 800 with a time of 2:31.6 with Lucy Holland 2nd in 2:51.5. Christine Wastila won both the long jump with 14-9.5 and triple jump with 30-06. She also placed 4th in the 200. Bree Humphrey placed 2nd in the triple jump and 3rd in the long jump behind Wastila. Ruby Marruijo picked up the 3rd place points in the triple jump. Kelli Law cleared 9-6 in the pole vault by a bunch. In the throws, new-comer Lexia Hall won the shot-put for us with a toss of 27 feet 8 inches. She also went to Lincoln on Wednesday and threw the discus with a toss of 73 feet 10 inches. Gabby Mueller placed 2nd in the 400 with 63.8. We easily won the 4×100 relay with Grant-Williams, Perez, Abigail Whittemore, and Hickey with a time of 50.81. We didn’t enter either the 4×400 or 3200 meter run because of the Mt. Carmel meet and the score was already lop-sided.
Arnie Robinson Invite, April 1
We took a dozen kids to the Fifth Annual Arnie Robinson Invitational at Mesa College. This meet features High School events in the morning followed by a College meet in the afternoon. We wound-up winning eight of the events, placing second in four, and third in two. Harvesting the most first place medals and first place T-Shirts was Alysah Hickey who won both the 100 and 200 meter dashes in meet record times. She also placed first in the high jump. Uncharacteristically, in the 100, she was last out of the blocks and had to make-up a lot of distance before pulling away to win by four-tenths of a second which explains her time of 12.37. Normally she’s close to 12 flat. In the 200 she led from the start to win by eight-tenths of a second with a near PR of 25.71. Teresa Perez picked up the first-place awards for both the 1600 and 800 meter runs. Her time of 5:15.40 in the 1600 broke the meet record by over 13 seconds. This was the first time she’d run the 1600 in a meet and she followed later, on tired legs, to easily win the 800 with a time of 2:22.62. Natalya Gomez probably would have placed second for us but she tripped over the railing that lines the perimeter of the track and limped-in. Our other first place female winner was Kelli Law who won the pole vault with a leap of 9 feet even. Ruthie Grant-Williams placed second in the 100 hurdles with 16.67, a time that was well-off her school record of 15.75. Sometimes you just get a bad trip (pun intended) when sprinting over 33 inch barriers. She also placed third in the 300 meter hurdles with a time of 47.49 and second in the high jump with a leap of 5 feet 2 inches. Rileah Ramirez was fourth in the high jump.
In the boys’ events Ian Hurlburt won the 800-meter run with a time of 2:02.54 and later clocked 24.32 in the 200. Spencer Busby and Danny Mineo went 1-2 in the 3200-meter run with times of 10:17.10 and 10:24.12. Alex Cheever placed second in the pole vault with a mark of 11 feet. In the frosh/soph shot-put Joe Whalen was throwing the regulation 12 pound shot up until his last throw when we realized that everyone else in the event was using a 10-pound shot. His final throw with the lighter implement netted him fifth place with a toss of 30 feet 6 inches.
Double Duals with Clairemont and Kearny, April 6
Arcadia Invitational, April 6 & 7
Our second and third dual meets were double-duals with Clairemont and Kearny on April 6th at Kearny High School followed by the Arcadia meet for a few of the kids.
In dual meets involving more than two schools, the events are contested with all schools participating at the same time; but the schools are scored as if there were separate match-ups. In a double-dual there are six sets of scores, three for the boys and three for the girls. Going in it looked as if the boys would be able to beat Kearny but the match-up with Clairemont appeared to be very close and we thought we’d have to win at least one of the relays to take it. Well, the boys’ meet against Clairemont was close with the Islanders winning by the score of 66 to 57. However, we didn’t win against Kearny. That’s the bad news. The good news is we didn’t lose either. It was a tie with both schools scoring 63 points. The girls’ match-ups went as expected with 86-31 and 92-39 wins over Kearny and Clairemont respectively. The Kearny boys beat Clairemont by the score of 75-31 and the Clairemont girls won over Kearny by the score of 81-41. With three dual meets under our belts the W-L records stand at 3-0 for the girls and 2-0-1 for the boys.
In track, one person can make a big difference in the point-score. It doesn’t matter how many athletes a team brings to a meet, only the top 3 finishers in each event score points. There are 5 points awarded for first, 3 for second, and only 1 for third. So, if you can win each event – you win the meet. If you don’t win them all, a few second-place finishes will keep you close. That one person in this meet for the boys was Alex Cheever who won the pole vault with a PR leap of 12 feet 6 inches. He also won the 100-meter dash with the photo finish time of 11.3. Those were wins against both other schools. In the discus throw his toss of 91-11 was good for first against Kearny and second against Clairemont. His mark of 17-11.75 in the long jump placed us first against Clairemont and second against Kearny. So, in each match-up against the other schools he accounted for 18 points. As usual, our stable of distance runners carried the day for most of the other points. In the 400-meter run we went 1-2-3 with Ian Hurlburt winning with a time of 53.6 followed by Charlie Winn with 55.7, and Chris Russell who clocked 55.8. Luke Klingenberg and Hurlburt went 1-2 in the 800 with times of 2:07.0 and 2:08.4. Klingenberg, Spencer Busby, and Danny Mineo took the top 3 places in the 1600 all with times around 5-minutes flat. The 3200 was won by Cole Mullins with Mineo and Busby placing second and third. The times in the distance runs weren’t important as we were running for the points, not personal records. Hurlburt did have a nice trip in the 200, however, and finished in a dead-heat for second with a time of 23.8.
In the girls’ races, the usual suspects carried the day. While setting up at the clerk table one of the officials noted that we didn’t seem to have as many kids in the stands as the other two schools. I jokingly replied “true, but they’re all fast.” In the end, Coronado placed first in every event entered against each of the other schools. Alysah Hickey won both the 100 and 200 with hand times of 11.9 and 26.0. Teresa Perez won the 400 and the 800 with times of 62.6 and 2:26.4. In the 800, Madden Hundley placed second and Lucy Holland third. Hundley also won the 1600. Naya Tamariz completed the sweep of the distance events in the 3200 with a time of 12:43. Ruthie Grant-Williams won both hurdle events with times of 15.9 in the 100 hurdles and 48.6 in the 300 hurdles. Lexia Hall won both the shot put and discus with a toss of 27-6 in the former and 82-6 in the latter. The other winners were Kelli Law in the pole vault, Rileah Ramirez in the high jump, Christine Wastila in the long jump (15-2.5), and Bree Humphrey in the triple jump (30-3). As stated at the start of this article, if you win every event you win the meet. Wastila also placed second in the triple jump and third in the 200. Ramirez also placed second in the long jump. Of course, we won the 4×100 with Grant-Williams, Abigail Whittmore, Perez, and Hickey. The time was 50.8, over 3 seconds faster than the next finisher.
We weren’t trying to run up the score against the other teams, in fact some of our best runners either sat out the meet to rest up for the big Arcadia Invitational on Saturday or just ran easy for the points. At Arcadia, in the Friday Distance Carnival, Jasmine Rippey posted a season best in the 3200-meter run of 11:26.80. The next day Renee Phillips ran a PR for the full mile in 5:11.75. Neither girl ran in the Thursday meet. After placing 8th overall in the high jump with 5-4, Hickey had to rush to check-in for the 100 where she posted a fast time of 12.13. Our lone boy at the meet was Charlie Winn who got a bit tangled up in the crowd of fast 800 meter runners. Still he ran a respectable time of 1:58.07
Jaguar Invitational, April 15
On April 15, a few kids ran at the Jaguar Invitational at Valley Center High. We used that meet as an opportunity for a few of our runners to try events other than their specialties. Normally Charlie Winn runs the 800 so we put him in the 1600 (mile). He went out for the first lap as if it were an 800 (in 63 seconds) and paid the price on the last lap. Even so, his time was 4:30.17 for 5th place. We thought that Ian Hurlburt should be able to run the 400 in under 52 seconds based on his sub 2-minute 800 meter times and his 4×1600 relay splits. So, we did a bit of block work the day before and he sped to a nice time of 51.85 to finish 4th. Jasmine Rippey normally runs the 3200-meter run, an event in which she holds the school record. We put her in the 1600 where she made it very interesting up-front for most of the race before finishing 3rd in 5:24.54. We also took 2 throwers. Joseph Whalen PR’d in both the shot put and discus throw with marks of 31-4.5 and 61-9. The biggest personal record of the day came from Lexia Hall who not only won her flight of the girls’ discus throw with a toss of 78-5 but she also won her flight of the shot put with a heave of 31 feet 6 inches. She’s a senior and new to track, but this was 4 feet farther then her previous and only 17 inches under our school record. Judging from the way she’s been improving, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her surpass it by the end of the season.
Mission Bay and Madison Double Dual Meet:
In our league double-dual meet match-up with Mission Bay and Madison on April 20th the girls’ track team extended their unbeaten record to 5-0, but the boys fell to 3-1-1 with a win over Madison and a loss to Mission Bay. The boys’ meet with Madison was as close as it gets with the Islanders tweaking out a 61-60 point victory. The Mission Bay- Madison score was 86-50 so there was really nothing we could do to beat them. The girls’ margins were 100-23 over Madison and 74-43 vs Mission Bay. Noteworthy marks for the boys included a 200 meter time by Ian Hurlburt of 23.83 for 3rd overall and a 52.47 win in the 400. As usual most of the boys’ points came from the distance team with a sweep in the 800 by Charles Winn, Luke Klingenberg and Spencer Busby; a 1-2 finish in the 1600 by Cole Mullins and Danny Mineo;
and a 1-2 finish in the 3200 by Mineo and Busby. Our only other winner was Alex Cheever in the pole vault with a leap of 12-0 followed by Dakota Summers, who placed 2nd. Cheever also picked up 5 points against Madison and 3 points against Mission Bay by placing 2nd in the discus behind a Mission Bay thrower.
As usual the girls won most of the events entered against both schools with Alysah Hickey winning the 100, 200, High Jump, and anchoring the 4×100 relay team. Teresa Perez won the 400 and placed 2nd to Hickey in the 200. Normally her main event is the 800 but she was backing off to try for a fast time in the UCSD Triton Invite on Saturday. Obviously that strategy paid-off because she ran a PR at Trident of 2:16.56 for the 800-meter run. That’s less than 2.5 seconds off our school record set in 1998 by Samantha Piper at the State Finals. Another girl closing in on a school record is Lexia Hall who won both the shot put and discus with tosses of 32 feet 1/2 inch and 90 feet 8 inches. Her mark in the shot put is around 10 inches shy of our school record set by Kara Solem in 2002. We had a few other nice marks in the sprints with freshman Abigail Whittemore clocking 13.47 in the 100 for 2nd place and a couple of nice 200 meter times by Christine Wastila and Gabby Mueller who ran 27.68 and 28.07. Madden Hundley won the 800 in 2:26.9, Renee Phillips, Jasmine Rippey, and Naya Tamariz went 1-2-3 in the 1600, and Rippey won the 3200. Ruthie Grant-Williams suffered a rare loss in the 100 hurdles but only because she tripped over a hurdle early in the race. Still, she came back to place 2nd with a time of 17.58 with Laura Wiese 3rd in 19.32. Grant-Williams also won the 300 hurdles and placed 2nd in the high jump to Hickey. Kelli Law won the pole vault as usual with 9 feet even. In the long jump and triple jump we settled for 2nd and 3rd in both events behind both of the other schools with Wastilia and Bree Humphrey doing the honors. We easily won the 4×100 relay with Grant-Williams, Whittemore, Madison Shanks, and Hickey.
Perez wasn’t the only Coronado athlete at the UCSD Triton Invite. Two eighth grade distance runners from the middle school team also entered. Grant Hawthorn ran 4:38 for the 1500 meter run and Jessica Ehret clocked 5:12 in the girls’ 1500. Most of our distance crew and cross country team comes from the middle school program and these are two more to watch in the coming years.
Christian & Crawford Dual, April 27
Escondido Invitational, April 28
Frosh-Soph Invite, April 29
Girls finish the season with unbeaten record and Alysah Hickey sets two school records at the Frosh-Soph Invite:
The busiest three days of the season were during the last double dual meet on Thursday, April 20th with Christian and Crawford, the Escondido Invite on Friday and the County Frosh/Soph Meet on Saturday. Since the outcome for the league championship was already determined prior to the Thursday meet, we pulled our top athletes from both the boys’ and girls’ teams so they’d be fresh for the other two meets. Even so, the girls easily defeated both Christian and Crawford to finish the season with a 7-0 record by scores of 96-36 against Christian and 110-16 against Crawford. Mission Bay was the League Champion for boys, also with a 7-0 record.
I’ll go over the three meets in reverse order, starting with the Frosh/Soph Invite. The best performance of the week was by Alysah Hickey who won both the Soph 100 and 200 meter runs in school record times with a mark of 11.96 for the 100 and 25.22 for the 200. She also won the high jump with a leap of 5 feet 5 inches and anchored the winning 4×100 team which included Ruthie Grant-Williams, Madison Shanks, and Teresa Perez. Their time was 49.58. Hickey’s 100 time ranks her at the top in San Diego and among the top 25 sophomores in the country. She broke her own school record for the 100 of 12.03 set last year at Mt. Carmel. Her 200-record eclipsed the 25.55 time set by Sarah Player at the Elmer Runge Invitational in 2007. At one time Player held the 100, 200, 100 hurdle and 300 hurdle records for the Islanders. Her only record still standing is the 300-hurdle mark of 45.37. The high jump competition came down to Hickey who has a season’s best mark of 5-6 and Abby Phillips from Santa Fe Christian with a season’s best of 5-6.5. These are the top two marks in San Diego this season so it’s fitting that they were both in the same meet. Coaching remotely from Park City Utah was our great High Jump coach Kerry Elders. Kerry hasn’t yet been able to make it out to San Diego this season so we send him videos of the jumpers and set up an iPod with Facetime for practice. We set up Facetime at this meet which got more than a few looks from the other coaches. It was a good contest but in the end Hickey prevailed with Phillips placing 2nd with 5-3. Grant-Williams placed 3rd in both the 100 and 300 hurdles with personal bests of 15.41 and 47.06. Although the 100-hurdle time was faster than her own school record it doesn’t count as a new record because of a 3.4 meter/second tail-wind. In addition to the relay leg, Perez placed 3rd in both the 1600 and 800 meter runs. Her time of 5:15.23 in the 1600, while good, probably would have been a bit faster if that race didn’t immediately follow the relay. She came off the field from the relay, peeled off her relay numbers, stuck the numbers on for the 1600 and went right back out. Madden Hundley placed 4th behind Perez in the 1600 with a time of 5:20.87. The five girls amassed 72 points to win the Girls’ Sophomore Title. Torrey Pines was way back with 38 points followed by Rancho Bernardo with 38, University City with 37. La Costa Canyon, Steele Canyon, and Gompers each scored 27 points out of the 30 schools that scored at least 1 point. Basically, the same girls also won the frosh title in 2016 but by only 2 points over Steele Canyon. Three boys qualified for the meet with Cole Mullins setting a Personal Record in the 1600 of 4:52.10 and Spencer Busby going under 10 minutes for the first time in the 3200 with a time of 9:50.42. Luke Klingenberg, still not 100% after a bout with strep throat, ran 4:37.37 for the 1600. He’ll be back to 100% by league finals on May 12.
At the Escondido Invitational on Friday, Ian Hurlburt had a big breakthrough in the 800-meter run with a time of 1:56.88, with Charlie Winn right behind in 1:57.55. These are currently the top two times in CIF Division-II. Winn has also run under 1:57. Coronado is the only school in San Diego County currently with two half-milers under 1:57. Our two ace female two-milers, Jasmine Rippey and Renee Phillips were looking forward to getting PR’s in the 3200 because of the quality field this meet draws. Unfortunately, sometimes a quality field becomes tactical with no one wanting to take the lead. Such was the case this night with over 20 girls in the fast heat strolling through the first mile in around 5:45. Phillips and Rippey picked up the pace in the 2nd mile to post times of 11:15.72 and 11:18.88, fast to be sure, but not as fast as they had wanted to run.
Now, back to the dual meet on Thursday with Christian and Crawford. As I mentioned above we pulled several runners, or lightly raced others, because of the two meets that followed. Even so, there would have been no way for the boys to handle the top sprinters from Crawford and Christian. In the 100-meter dash Kainoa Potter, Alex Cheever, Hurlburt (getting in a spot of speed work), and Shane Alihan got a few points for us. Hurlburt placed 2nd against both other schools in the 200 with a time of 24.24 followed by Potter, Chris Russell, and Lance Lorenz, who also placed. Russell picked up 2nd vs the other schools in the 400 with a time of 55.24 followed by Nicholas Inzunza who clocked 57.8. Luke Klingenberg ran the 800 for a workout while placing 3rd. Danny Mineo had a PR in the 1600 while placing 2nd in 4:50.5. The top point boy was Cheever who also won the pole vault with 12-0, placed 2nd in the long jump with 18-2, and first in the triple jump with 39-0. Dakota Summers placed 2nd in the pole vault with 10-6.
The girls’ meet was no contest. Hickey and Abigail Whittemore went 1-2 in the 100 with times of 12.27 and 13.26. Hickey and Christine Wastila went 1-2 in the 200 with times of 27.26 and 27.64. In the 400 I told Teresa Perez to just cruise the race fast enough to win, which she did, but her time was 59.9. That’s a fast “cruise.” Madden Hundley and Natalya Gomez went for points in the 800 finishing 2-3 with Lucy Holland 4th. Naya Tamariz had a PR in the 1600 of 5:47.5 followed by Hundley in 5:47.9. Ruthie Grant-Williams and Laura Wiese went 1-2 in the 100 hurdles with the latter posting a PR of 18.08. Grant-Williams also won the 300 hurdles with Wiese placing 4th. The team that won the 4×100 at Frosh/Soph tuned-up and won with 51.36. Both the shot put and discus was won by Lexia Hall with heaves of 31-2.5 and 80-0. We went 1-2 in the high jump with Rileah Raminez and Hickey both clearing 5-1. Kelli Law cleared 9-0 to win the pole vault. Wastila, Ramirez, and Bree Humprey swept the long jump with Wastila and Humphrey coming back in the triple jump to place 1-2.
CHAMPIONSHIP MEETS
May 12 — City League Finals (Location TBA)
The League Finals serves as a qualifying meet for the CIF Prelims and Finals. To progress further athletes must qualify meet-by-meet.
May 20 — CIF Prelims, Mt. Carmel
May 27 — CIF Finals, Mt. Carmel
June 2-3 — State Meet, Fresno
