There were plenty of double-winners among Orange County athletes at the CIF Southern Section Track & Field Finals on Saturday at Moorpark High School.
Some O.C. athletes also improved on the county-leading marks they owned coming into the meet.
In the team competition, the JSerra girls won their second Southern Section championship in a row, winning the Division 3 team title with 76 points, besting second-place South Pasadena by 11 points.
Unlike last year, when JSerra won by a wide margin, the Lions needed to finish near the top in the 4×400-meter relay, the final event of the meet, to hold on to first place.
The Lions did indeed win the 4×400, with the foursome of Georgia Jeanneret, Anne Elise Packard, Chloe Elbaz and Maya Woolforde finishing in 4 minutes, 2.81 seconds.
South Pasadena ran second in the race, keeping within a few meters of the Lions for most of the relay before Elbaz and Woolforde put the Lions way ahead over the final 600 meters.
Earlier in the meet, Jenneret won her second Division 3 800 title in a row and Summer Wilson finished first in the 3,200.
“The one thing I want to say about track is to see all the different events kind of come together and do their thing, and it combines into a team score like this, I just think it’s one of the most fun things to be a part of,” JSerra coach Chase Frazier said. “And I’m proud of the team for supporting everybody else at all the events all day long.”
Dana Hills’ Evan Noonan, who came in as the state leader in the 1,600, improved on that mark, winning with a time of 4:04.02 that set a Division 2 record for the finals.
Helping Noonan set the mark was Oregon commit Anthony Fast Horse of Ventura, who finished second in 4:05.26 after pushing Noonan hard down the stretch.
Noonan then came back later in the meet to easily win the 3,200 in 8:57.12.
Ventura’s Micah Grossman tried to make a move on Noonan with about 400 meters to go, but Noonan answered Grossman’s challenge by pulling away.
Beckman’s Ibzan Felix, who came in with the second-fastest county time behind Noonan in the 1,600, won the Division 1 1,600 in 4:07.06, outdueling Millikan’s Jason Para, who ran second in 4:07.10.
Los Alamitos’ Devin Bragg won the Division 1 100 in 10.36, improving his county-leading time of 10.50, and came back to win the 200 in 21.15.
Pacifica senior Zach Lewis was a double winner in Division 3. He won the discus with a throw of 178 feet, 1 inch and won the shot put with a mark of 59-1.5.
Portola’s Rider Cooper won the Division 1 400 in 47.37, improving on his county-leading time of 47.50.
Cooper was then scheduled to go up against Bragg in the 200, but dropped out due to a sore hamstring, Portola coach Cale Kavanaugh said.
“In his warm-up for the 200, his first stride where he started to put some emphasis on it, it just didn’t feel right,” Kavanaugh said. “And so that was all I needed to know. He’s very communicative. Some kids don’t complain about anything, and they’ll go out and they’ll kill it. With him, if he’s complaining about something, then this is bad. So that was it. We’re shutting it down.”
The Division 2 boys high jump was packed with top finishers from Orange County, starting with Mater Dei’s Brandon Gorski, who cleared 6 feet, 6 inches to win the event the event for the second year in a row.
Gorski also won the long jump with a mark of 22-4.75.
Huntington Beach freshman Sydney Rubio pulled off a mild upset by finishing second in the girls Division 1 3,200 in 10:20.52, ahead of Trabuco Hills’ Holly Barker, who finished third in 10:30.07.
Santiago of Corona’s Rylee Blade finished first in 10:14.97.
Barker, a junior, came in with a county-leading time of 10:02.52, which she ran at the Arcadia Invitational on April 6 and was looking to capture her second Southern Section title in a row in the 3,200.
“I think the main thing I took away from this race is that I just have to get comfortable running my own race and I went out trying to pace off Rylee, and just stay with her and I think that probably wasn’t the smartest thing,” Barker said. “I run better if I just stick to what I know I can do and not try to conform into someone’s pace, because then when they try to break off, I kind of just mentally fall off a bit. I’m not a different runner than when I ran a month ago at Arcadia or anything. I just have to keep moving.”
Newport Harbor junior Keaton Robar appeared smooth and relaxed, going wire to wire for a first-place finish in the girls Division 2 800, winning in a county-leading time of 2:09.30.
The top nine performances in most events, regardless of division, qualify for the CIF-SS Masters Meet at Moorpark High on Saturday, May 18. The top 12 performances Saturday in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 qualify for the Masters Meet.
Newport Harbor’s Natalie McCarty was also a double winner, winning the Division 2 100 hurdles in 14.76 and winning the 300 hurdles in 43.84.
McCarty also placed second in the Division 2 high jump.
