CHS Head Track & Field Coach George Green shares the results of the CIF Prelims:
At the CIF prelims on May 20, the boys’ and girls’ track team advanced 15 athletes to the finals to be held on May 27. Both meets are at Mt. Carmel High School. Alysah Hickey advanced in four events. She started her day with the first running event at 9:00am, the 4 x 100-meter relay. Ruthie Grant-Williams ran the lead-off leg, Madison Shanks ran the second leg, Abigail Whittemore ran the third leg, and Hickey ran the anchor leg. We were already in front when Hickey got the baton but she increased that gap to over 9 meters to win easily with a time of 49.32. This was the 4th fastest time of the day out of both divisions. The high jump also started at 9:00am so she had to check-out to run the relay. This wasn’t a problem because the starting height was 14 inches lower than she’d eventually jump and she passes the lower heights. It takes a long time get through the high jump and after clearing 5 feet 1 inch she had to again check-out to run her heat of the 100-meter dash which was scheduled to go off at 11:02am. When you check-out from a vertical event they don’t stop; the other contenders keep on jumping and the bar keeps going up. When you return you jump at whatever height the bar is at. The bar never goes back down for a returning jumper. In this case luck was with her as one of the other jumpers fell off the back of the pit after she landed. This stopped the high jump while the athlete was evaluated. Hickey won the 100 with the best time of the day of 12.13.
Video below: Alysah winning the 100 and 200
When she returned, the bar was at 5 feet 3 inches. One would think she’d have a problem with that height after running such a fast 100-meter dash but she soared over on her first attempt with several inches to spare. The only other jumper to clear 5-3 was teammate Grant-Williams who set a Personal Record. Hickey easily cleared 5 feet 5 inches, and made the following height 5 feet 7 inches on her third attempt. This was a Personal Record and is the top mark in the County for this season.
Normally you jump until you miss but she had one more race coming up at 11:50am so she stopped there. That other race was the 200. She easily won her heat with a school record time of 25.16. She had set the previous school record of 25.22 at the Frosh/Soph meet earlier this season.
Her training partner Grant-Williams had a similar issue with other races as she-too was in the 4×100 relay and had to check-out of the high jump to run the 100 hurdles at 10:00am. She placed 3rd in her heat with a time of 15.70 to move on to the CIF finals in three events.
She also had to check-out to run the 300 hurdles at 11:35am but by then her legs were pretty much shot and she didn’t advance with an uncharacteristically slow time for her of 49.79. Our 3rd entry in the high jump, Rileah Raminez, cleared 5-1 to also move on to the finals. That’s amazing considering our high jump coach Kerry Elders is still in Park City Utah coaching via Facetime. He should start a business coaching from high jump from his living room with results like that. Like the other two high jumpers, Raminez had another 9:00am event, the long jump. The problem with two jumping events at the same time is you must keep going back and forth between them for the duration. Raminez jumped well in the long jump with 15 feet 9.5 inches but it wasn’t quite far enough to advance. We entered four runners in the girls’ distance runs and all four advanced to the finals. Renee Phillips had a tough choice between the 1600 at 9:42am and the 3200 at 12:12pm. True that’s 2 1/2 hours between the two but considering the weather conditions and the time of the day the 3200 was run, that was a tough double. Her choice was to skip the 1600 and try for a sub 11-minute time in the 3200. She ran 11:02.25 at our league prelims to set a new school record. Or should she try for the school record of 5:03.82 in the 1600? She ran both, clocking 5:07.57 for the 1600 and missing the school record by about 3.5 seconds.
Of course, this affected her time in the 3200 in which she finished 8th with a time of 11:37, fast enough to qualify for the finals. Now she has the same choice to make for the finals. Madden Hundley also qualified for the 1600 next week with a time of 5:24.97. Teresa Perez set a PR in the 800 with a time of 2:15.66, just 1.53 seconds off the Islander school record.
She came back in the 3200 to qualify for next week in both events while placing 7th with a time of 11:34.78. The fourth girl to qualify was Jasmine Rippey who ran just the 3200 and placed 3rd with a time of 11:21.60.
Teresa Perez and Renee Phillips in 3200Kelli Law qualified in the pole vault with a height of 8 feet 10 inches. We put together a girls’ 4×400 meter team from runners who weren’t maxed out. I thought we’d have an off-chance to qualify and we just missed by placing 10th in 4:19.57. The order was Gabby Mueller, Christine Wastila, Natalya Gomez, and Hundley. Mueller ran the 400 earlier in 62.40 but didn’t qualify. The 400 is very competitive this season.
Lexia Hall made the alternate list for the shot put with a heave of 31-10.
All of the above happened before 2:00pm when the boys’ meet started. Alex Cheever was entered in both the long jump at 2:00pm and the pole vault at 3:30pm. He jumped well in long jump with a leap of 19 feet 9 inches but it wasn’t enough to move on. He did advance in the pole vault, however, with a clearance of 12 feet even.
Video: Alex over 11-6 in pole vault:
Most of our other events were distance runs in which we advanced 4 of our 5 boys entered. Because of the hot-windy conditions most of the athletes were looking to qualify rather than set personal records. Our lone entry in the 1600, Luke Klingenberg, clocked 4:30.33 to qualify for next week’s finals.
In the 800 we were in the 3rd heat of four among two heats of Division I and two of Division II. The 800 is competitive this year but the first two heats were slow because of the weather conditions. In our heat, we went 1-2 with Ian Hurlburt running 1:58.31 and Charlie Winn clocking 1:59.13. Out of the six heats Hurlburt had the top time and Winn had the 4th best time.
In the 3200 Spencer Busby had to go for it to qualify as he was seeded in the middle of the pack out of 27 entries. Since only the top 12 move on his goal was to not worry about his time but to not let more than 11 runners finish in front of him. He produced a PR by 3/10 of a second in 9:50.18 while finishing in 8th place. Danny Mineo placed 15th with a PR of 10:11.39, 6 seconds faster than his previous best that was run at league finals.
Mineo in 3200The last event of the day was the boys’ 4×400. Like the girls’ relay I figured we’d have an off-chance of qualifying. Also, like the girls, we finished 10th and are the top alternate with a good chance of scratching in. The order was Chris Russell to Winn to Klingenberg to Hurlburt. Their time was 3:33.62.
All photos courtesy of George Green.
For schedules, heat sheets, and other information about the prelims go to SDtrackmag.com/CIF.
