Clash of the titans
Photo: Skyline High School’s track on April 29, 2023
By Ching Yuen, staff writer
As a warm up for All City Trials, the Track and Field team visited Oakland’s Skyline High School to compete in the “Clash of the Titans” Invitational on April 29, 2023. This meet is important because it is not only an invitational where the distance, sprinters, and jumpers all competed, but it is also an important time of the season to get fast times in preparation for All City and qualify for state.
Since field events started at 9 am and track events started at 10 am, the team arrived before 8 am to warm up. To start off the loaded day of competition in the sand pit, Senior Jarvis T. jumped 43 ft-11.5 inches in the triple jump and Senior Leo L. jumped 41 ft-1.5 inches for first and second place in the entire meet. After the meet, both Jarvis and Leo acquired state qualifying marks in the triple jump. Jarvis T. also jumped 20 ft-7 inches in the long jump, another state qualifying mark, for second place to add on to his collection of medals while Leo L. jumped 18 ft-8 inches for eighth place. Jarvis T. said, “I think my jumps are just the beginning of something great. I think it is a good benchmark and good starter for all city.”
Meanwhile in high jumps, sophomore Shepard P. overcame a height of 4 ft-10 inches for sixth place in the entire meet.
Sprinters
Photo: Freshman Madeline K. in the block start position.
In the first track event of the day, the 4x100m relay, the boys varsity finished with a time of 45.40 seconds for third place and a season record. With that time, the varsity boys 4x100m team currently holds fourth in the city behind Washington, Lincoln, and Lowell, with less than one second separating Lincoln, Lowell and Galileo.
The sprinters also performed well as numerous Lions set new personal bests. Senior Philip Z. ran a personal best in the 200m in 23.85 seconds, good for an eighth-place finish. Meanwhile, Senior Ching Y. ran a personal best in the 400m in 54.17 seconds and placed eighth in the entire meet. Freshman Trystan A. also had a breakout performance and ran the 400m in under 60 seconds for his first time in 59.88 seconds. “I finally went sub 60 and it felt like a great accomplishment,” said Trystan A., adding, “My next goal is to run sub 59.”
Representing the Frosh-Soph girls, Freshman Madeline K. ran a new personal best in the 200m in 30.16 seconds, beating her previous time of 30.68. In the meantime, Sophomore Selah T., the silver medalist in the Frosh-Soph 200m from last year’s All City Finals, ran the 400m in 1:04.56 and broke her previous personal best by almost 10 seconds. Selah said, “I was nervous at first but I felt okay after the race. I have to put in the work and cut down on my 200m time. I just hope to make the trial.” With that time, Selah now has the second best 400m time in the Frosh-Soph division in the city according to the online track and field progress keeper, athletic.net.
Distance
Photo: Sophomore Georges B. running in the 1600m.
In the longer distances, the Lion’s distance squad showed out in the 800m race. Sophomore Nicolas R. finished fourth in the 800m with a new personal best of 2:01.05 and narrowly missed the state qualifying time by a little more than half a second. Junior Jackson V. finished eighth with a time of 2:05.75 and Junior Marcel G. finished tenth with a new personal best of 2:06.30. Nicolas R. says, “I loved it! I thought it was good and I got to race in the fastest heat. Our team was great, especially the sprinters and our 4x400m team did well but we could do better.”
In the meantime, Sophomore Leo G. ran a new personal best in the 1600m in 5:10.05, beating his previous record by more than 8 seconds. Senior Mathias C. also ran close to his personal best, finishing the four lap race in 4:29.02.
On the girls side, Junior Noelle K., the female school record holder for the 1600m, improved on her four lap race with a time 5:22.51, finishing second in the entire meet and beating her previous best by over 7 seconds in the process, effectively lowering the school record to uncharted territories yet again.
Junior Niki L. finished the 1600m in 6:22.60, just missing her personal best by less than a second.
Lastly, in the varsity boys 4x400m relay, the competition came down to the Lions and the Cardinals. The race ended in the Lions taking second place with a finishing time of 3:39.30 versus Lowell’s 3:35.16. While the Lions were in the lead in the first two legs of the race, a pair of strong finishes by Lowell runners took the lead from the Lions. Distance runner Jackson V. sees this as an accomplishment, saying, “Most of us are exhausted. I am happy with what we did,” adding, “I see a closer race with Lowell, a much more exciting race to watch and to run.”
Head coach Kevin Adams expressed his happiness after seeing the hard work of his team come to fruition, saying, “We had a good meet with a lot of PRs and a lot of surprises. I thought we won more medals than we would get. It was a nice and warm day, almost everybody PR in something and we are getting ready for the All city. Jarvis with a big triple jump today. [Jarvis and Leo] are top 6 and 10 in NorCal.”
Coach Braund, the track team’s distance coach, also shared his positivity about the team, saying, “We had a lot of personal bests. It was a great day overall. Noelle lowered the school record to 5:22 and Nico ran 2:01 which is close to state qualifying. There are also several other good personal bests,” adding, “They have been working hard since December. They are finally peaking at the right time. We have been through lots of meets and learning race strategy and using people to run fast and it kind of came together.”
Full resolution picture of medalists above.
Full team results:
