With two meets last week for the Islander Track & Field teams, there is a lot to cover. Head Coach Cameron Gary and assistant distance coach John Downey supply the details.
From head coach Cameron Gary:
4/16 League Meet – Crawford/Kearny/Madison
The Islanders were in action for their last Central League meet of the year on April 16 at Madison High School. As the Central League runs “cluster” meets (multiple teams competing at the same venue on the same date), the Central League coaches have agreed to use the scoring from the respective teams’ last meetings to determine placements in the final Central League standings. That was the case on this date, as the Islanders were matched up against teams from Crawford, Kearny and Madison high schools.
Unfortunately, the timing system experienced operational difficulties that prevented it from being operated in a “fully automatic” mode (started and stopped via an electronic sensor). Current high school rules specify that only fully automatic times can be considered for records, invitational entry, or championship qualifications. Consequently, the races in this meet were manually timed. The competition placings and relative points scored still count. But for the sake of this article, I will forego reporting on the race times for the running events.
In the team scoring, the Islander boys defeated Kearny by a score of 81–51, and the Islander girls narrowly prevailed over Kearny by the score of 64–62. The Islander boys defeated Madison 65–52, with the Islander girls winning 68–34. And finally, the Islander boys defeated Crawford 95–17, with the Islander girls prevailing by 55–41.
The Islander boys were led by sophomore Ah’Mahn Oliver, who won the 100m Dash, and also ran legs on the Islander 4×100 (second place) and 4×400 (first place) relay teams. Other varsity victories on the boys’ side were notched by seniors Nathan Ayan and Oscar Alicandri in the 1600 and 3200-meter Runs, respectively. Lastly, senior Spencer Reidarson emerged victorious in the 300m Hurdles. It was his event debut.
On the girls’ side, senior Summer Little won the 100m Dash, and took second place in the 200m Dash. Junior Maya Wilson won the 300m Hurdles, and took second place in the 400m Dash. Junior Lily Humphrey won the 1600m Run, and sophomore Claudia Wagner won the triple jump with a season’s best leap of 31’10”.
And finally, the Islander team of Edie Alicandri, Carly Devore, Ava Schlomer and Humphrey emerged victorious in the 4×800 Relay. Junior Grace Messner, a former hurdler… made her event debut in the Discus. She threw 81’3” to place third in that event against a fairly strong field.
Both the Islander boys and girls teams finished the Central League season undefeated, with perfect records of four wins and zero losses. As such, both Islander teams will be the 2026 Central League team champions.
4/18 Jaguar Invitational
A select number of Islander varsity athletes returned to action on April 18 at the Jaguar Invitational. This meet took place at Valley Center High School.
The Islanders produced several outstanding performances at this meet, with several heat winners and personal best (PB) performances. The most notable of these performances was junior Davin Collins tying the Islander school record for the boys 100m Dash, with a time of 11.06 seconds. This ties the record held by Kyle Brown from 2008. Collins’ time currently sits second in the Central League and seventh overall in the San Diego CIF Division 3. Collins also ran a leg on the Islander boys 4×100 Relay, which finished 3rd overall with a time of 43.50 seconds.
Islander junior Maya Wilson continues to impress in the 300m Hurdle event. She was the overall winner with a time PB of 46.96 seconds. It should be noted that this was only Wilson’s third time doing this event. Her time leads the Central League, is fifth in the CIF Division 3, and ranks second on the Coronado Islander all-time performance list.
Another recent convert to the 300m Hurdle event is senior Spencer Reidarson, who won his heat with a PB time of 43.69 seconds. This was his second time competing in this event. His time leads the Central League and currently ranks him seventh in the CIF Division 3.
Sophomore Noah Jones notched a victory in the boys’ long jump with a PB leap of 21’9.5”. Jones is now ranked second in the Central League and fifth in CIF Division 3 in this event. Furthermore, he is now the #1 ranked sophomore long jumper in the entire San Diego CIF section.
Note from assistant distance coach John Downey
The team also sent a small contingent to Walnut, CA on Saturday to compete in the 66th edition of the prestigious Mt. SAC Relays held at Mount San Antonio College. The Mt. SAC Relays annually features competition between World-class International and collegiate athletes as well as very high-level high school participants. Participants must meet previously established high-level performance standards to be accepted to compete. Our athletes who participated at Mt. SAC met the standards during competitions earlier in the season. Islander top performances of the day were in the Seeded 4 x 800 Meter Relay and the 200 Meter Paralympic races.
Our senior quartet of Vincent Russo, Andrew Buck, Derick Ritter and Nathan Ayan toed the line with 23 other teams in a very crowded field of the Seeded 4 x 800m Relay which also included peer competitor Sage Creek High School who with Coronado are the two clear favorites to take the CIF San Diego Division 3 crown next month. The boys put forth a strong performance consisting of largely equal performance times for all four athletes resulting in establishing a new school record time of 8:11.24.
Junior Xavier Marsh won his heat of the 200 Meter Paralympic in a personal best time of 23.04 seconds. Ayan also competed in the Seeded Individual 800 Meter race that proved to be blazing fast as the winner established the 2026 USA #8 and California #3 mark. Ayan clocked a 1:59.41.
Competing in the Mt. SAC Relays provided our athletes with an invaluable experience and exposure to “next level” competition while they also witnessed numerous 2026 World, USA, and California Top Ten performances.
