It’s still a bit early in the season to know how the boys’ and girls’ track teams will fare when the league championships and CIF finals come around in May. However, based on the results from the Viking Invite last Saturday, hosted by La Jolla High School, the girls’ 4×100 relay team should be a strong contender. Running against mostly larger teams, Charlotte Kuite (10), Lindsey Balsley (11), Micaela Gistaro (9), and Tatiana Potter (11) placed second in the 4×100 and third in the sprint medley relay. Of the four girls, only Balsley had previously run in a track meet.
At the 2022 CIF D-3 finals, Balsley was the 300-meter hurdle champ and placed second in the long jump. In the 4×100, Kuite ran the lead leg, followed by Balsley, then Gistaro, with Potter running anchor. La Jolla won with a time of 50.06, followed by Bonita Vista with 51.71, then Coronado, only a tenth of a second back with 51.81. All relays ran in heats, with the winners determined by time. Their time of 51.81 currently places them 17th in the San Diego Section. The running order for the sprint medley relay (100, 100, 200, 400) switched Gistaro and Potter. West Hills won that one with a time of 1:54.57, with Coronado three seconds back in 1:57.53.
In the boy’s 1600, Nate Ayan moved up in the San Diego Section frosh ranks to tenth place with a PR time of 4:52.24.
Following is head coach Cameron Gary’s insight on the meet:
“We had a skeleton crew re: boys sprints this meet, as some are dealing with minor injuries, schedule conflicts, illnesses, etc. Sophomore Sean Groeneveld won his section of the 100m with a time of 11.89s. He is new to Track & Field and is not even using starting blocks yet. He also ran a leg on our 4×400 Relay, which placed sixth overall. That time is a full five seconds faster than our boys 4×4 ran to open last season (nearly a month later, to boot). That team featured Groeneveld, Jaden Banner (senior), Reif Souder, and Loxly Johnson (sophomore).
“Johnson competed in his first Track & Field meet ever and placed 11th overall in the 200m with a time of 24.02s.
“Kuite, Potter and Gistaro: This was the first high school Track & Field competition for all three. Since this is (nearly) everyone’s first meet, we purposely held them back a little (three events max… even though they are allowed four). I expect Gistaro and Kuite to qualify for the Frosh/Soph meet in their respective events. And both should do very well in our League this year. Gistaro (frosh) won her 100m heat with a time equal third fastest overall (13.24s). Pottor’s (junior) time in the 200m was the 9th fastest overall.”
Our next meet will be the Runge Invite this Saturday, hosted by Patrick Henry, but moved to the University City track this year.
For our full schedule and hundreds of photos for the season, go to our public website at IslanderTrack.com.
