Several athletes posted personal records in our third week of competition, and a handful qualified for the prestigious Mt. Carmel Invite this Saturday. Outstanding sprinting by junior Lauren Gilhooly netted her top seeding in the 100 and 200 meter dashes. Also advancing are distance runners Nathan Ayan in the 1600 and 800 meter runs and Rafael Roos in the 800. Lindsey Balsley made the cut in the long jump and 300 meter hurdles. Jackson Rohrs-Frazier advanced in the high jump based on his performance in an earlier meet. Both the girls 4×100 and 4×400 relay teams got in the meet. The boys 4×100 relay is the third alternate and will probably scratch in.
Head Coach Cameron Gary details the results of the two meets below.
3/14 League Meet (Lincoln, HTHSD, LMEC, Crawford)
The Islanders had their first League competition this week versus Lincoln, High Tech High (San Diego) and Crawford high schools. Logan Memorial Educational Campus (LMEC) also attended this meet but are only fielding a junior varsity team at this time.
- Boys’ varsity event winners at this meet included junior Sean Groeneveld in the 200m Dash (23.69s). His time is the #2 ranked performance in the City League. Sophomore Nathan Ayan moved down in distance to notch a personal record (PR) performance in the 400m Dash, with a time of 52.58 seconds. This time ranks him third in the City League. The Islander 4×400 Relay team of senior Marco Velarde, sophomore Davin Collins, freshman Xavier Marsh, and Groeneveld notched a time of 3:43.71. This time ranks them second in the City League.
- On the girls’ side, the Islanders were led by junior Lauren Gilhooly, who won the 200m Dash with a PR and school record time of 25.07s. This time ranks her first in the City League. She also ran a leg on the victorious 4×100 relay, along with seniors Tatiana Potter, Lindsey Balsley, and sophomore Summer Little. They notched a season’s best time of 50.57s, which ranks them second in the City League.
- Several Islander varsity athletes notched PRs at this meet. Among them were 100m Dash athletes Collins (11.94s) and juniors Von Pritchett (11.99s) and David Castillo (12.15s). In the Boys 200m Dash, Velarde ran 25.07 seconds to finish sixth. In the 400m Dash, junior Jace Larson ran 55.00s to finish second. In the 800m Run, senior Jack Shumaker ran 2:15.71 and freshman Marsh ran 2:23.06 to finish fourth and seventh, respectively.
- In the Throws events, junior Jeanpierre Resendes threw 25’8.50” in the Shot Put and 74’1” in the Discus to finish sixth and seventh in those events. Sophomore Garret Shumaker threw 25’8” to finish seventh in the Shot Put.
3/16 Runge Invitational
The Islanders traveled to Patrick Henry high school to compete in their largest meet to date for this season. Over 40 schools competed at this meet, as the Islanders faced some of their stiffest competition yet.
- Junior Lauren Gilhooly was the top Islander performer, as she was the overall winner in the 100m Dash with a personal record (PR) time of 11.88 seconds, missing the Islander school record by .01 seconds. Gilhooly defeated the defending San Diego Section CIF Champion in this race. And her time is tied for #1 in the San Diego Section and #4 for the entire state of California (just over 12,000 performances to date). Gilhooly also finished second in the 200m Dash with a PR and school record time of 24.46 seconds. This time ranks her #3 in the San Diego section, and #7 in California.
Lauren Gilhooly edges out Madison’s Amirah Shaheed (middle) in the fast heat of the 100-meter dash.
The third runner is Joella Frazier from University City. Gilhooly’s time of 11.88 was only 1/100 of a second off Alysah Hickey’s school record time of 11.87.
Later, in the 200-meter dash, Gilhooly placed second with a time of 24.31 with Shaheed first and Frazier third.
This time was a new school record formerly held by Hickey at 25.16. Photo by George Green- Senior Lindsey Balsley won the Girls Long Jump with a leap of 16’6”. She is currently #1 ranked.
- Senior Rafael Roos broke the 2-minute barrier in the Boys 800m Run with a PR of 1:59.47 while finishing 4th overall. This is the #1 time in the City League.
Rafael Roos dipped under 2 minutes for the 800 meter run at Runge. This ranks him first in the City League and 11th in San Diego County for the event. Photo by Phil Grooms - Several Islanders achieved PR’s at this meet. Among the boys were sophomore Davin Collins to finish 5th overall in the Frosh/Soph division 200m Dash (23.98s), senior Marco Velarde in the varsity 400m Dash (55.61s), sophomore Mason Gibbs to finish 9th overall in the Frosh/Soph 400m Dash (56.46s), sophomores Oscar Alicandri and Anton Youngblood in the Frosh/Soph 1600m Run (5:40.67 and 5:50.27, respectively), and sophomores Eddie Gonzalez and Garret Shumaker in the Shot Put and Discus, throwing 29’6” and 82’7”, respectively.
- On the girls’ side, sophomore Summer Little notched a PR in the Frosh/Soph 100m Dash, with a time of 14.13s. Sophomore Mia Sarchi ran PR’s of 31.34s in the Frosh/Soph division of the 200m Dash and 74.36s in the Frosh/Soph 400m Dash. And finally, senior Emily Fernandez jumped a PR of 13’9/25” in the Long Jump.
A couple final notes:
There are photos of all our meets at IslanderTrack.com.
Last year, the CIF introduced the 4×800 meter relay as one of the standard events to be run at all cluster and dual meets. We didn’t have four distance girls last year, but this season, Megan Norris, Stefanie Romero, Edie Alicandri, and Jaya Jost ran the event at our first cluster to establish the school record with the time of 12:14.43.
