Glendora Track and Field

We once again hosted the San Gabriel Valley Championships, and it was the biggest, strongest, and best executed version of the meet yet.  Thanks to our coaches, athletes, and especially our parent and family volunteers who made the event a success.

The event was also a success for our team.  Sixty-Four of our athletes qualified to compete in this increasingly prestigious event, and we brought home a box full of medals.  Overall, the boys varsity, frosh/soph and girls frosh/soph teams finished fourth, while the girls varsity were sixth.

Our best performer was senior thrower Catherine Chidester, whose win in the discus and second in the shot earned her the Field Athlete of the Meet honor.  She was our only varsity girls champ, but was joined in the medals by Shawn Miller (5th, 200m), Johannah Murray (5th, 800m), Lauren Benson (3rd, discus), Ashley Carter (5th, discus), and Kelsey Montgomery, who earned 2nd place with a long jump of 16′ 7″, which put her ninth on the GHS All-Time performers list.

The only boys champion was junior Austin Goodheart, who fought off a strong challenge to win the 800m.  He also took fifth in the 1600m.  Senior Corey Bullock (4th, 1600 & 3rd, 3200) and  junior Alex Ostrowski (5th, 100h & 4th 300h) were double medalists. Our other top performers were Anthony Castro (3rd, 1600), Cameron Duffy (4th 110h), and Aaron Stockham (4th, long jump).

Aaron’s long jump of 22′-1/4″ moved him to ninth on the GHS All-Time performers list.  Anthony (4:24.58) and Corey (4:24.50) entered the all-time 1600m list at eighth and ninth, resepctively.

On the Frosh/Soph level, we had several champions, most notably frosh Makayla Jacoub with her dominating win the 400.  Her time of 61.46 would have placed her fift in the varsity race, and made her the tenth best GHS All-Time.  Joining her was frosh Johanna Katiok, an easy winner in the 100m.  The boys were led by soph Isaiah Baiseri, who easily won the 200 and tied for first in the 100, making him our team’s only double winner on the day.

GHS results are here, complete meet results are here.

With our teams looked forward to the weekend’s SGV championships, we still posted clear victories over Chino in our final home meet of the year.

The girls were led seniors Catherine Chidester and Johannah Murray, each double winners (SP/Disc, 800/1600).  Seniors Melissa Nguyen (PV), Kelsey Montgomery (LJ) and Jessica Levy (TJ) also won their events.

Alex Ostrowski (300h and triple jump) and Justin Matthews (shot, discus) led the boys.  Other winners were sophs Trevor Nelli (800) and Kelly Hernandez (3200) and frosh Nick Harrington (PV), getting their first varsity wins,  along with Corey Bullock (1600m), Cameron Duffy (110h) and Aaron Stockham (LJ).

Complete meet results are here.

We host the 4th annual San Gabriel Track and Field Championships Saturday at West Covina High School.

79 of our athletes were accepted into the meet or are alternates, but all of our athletes and many of our parents will be taking part in helping run the meet.

You can view a list of the accepted entries here: final-by-team-09.pdf

And you can download a copy of the meet schedule here: sgv-sched-final-09.pdf

 The Mt Sac Relays have lost a bit of their luster.  The open meet is no longer the top domestic meet in the US, and the high school portion is not quite as prestigious as back in the day when coach Glenn Stewart, in the early 80’s, made Hilmer Lodge Stadium, and here we quote, “my house”.

Nevertheless, the big races are still pretty big, and senior Chistopher Ramsey used a huge kick to make the Invitational 800m his first significant win.

The Tartans got rolling by competing in several field events on Friday.  The most notable performance came from seniors Justin Matthews in the discus and James Kashyap pole vault.  Justin was 6th in his flight with a PR 134′10″ while James fought off a chaotic warm-up situation to jump a seasoal PR of 12′0″.

On Saturday, the morning began with our 4×1600m relay team finishing second in the seeded race.  Chris was joined by junior Austin Goodheart in the 800m Invitational race, but Austin developed some big blisters during the race and struggled to an 8th place finish.  And the day ended with our 4 x 400m relay team of juniors Derrick Erwing and Alex Ostrowski, soph Dillon Downard, and Chris finished fifth in their heat.  But the Invite 800 was the top event.

Unlike other recent races, Chris chose to run in the pack, and so the group went by the 400m mark in a pedestrian 60.1.  But at 300m, he made a very strong move, went by the leader at 150m and then held off the previously unbeatable Elias Gedyon of Loyola to win the race.   The winning time was only 1:56.05, but that included a last lap of 55.9, a 26.7 final 200 and the the last 100m was 12.9.  You can view video of the race here and here, and it’s especially fun to hear the announcers give Chris no chance to win until he, um, wins.

GHS results are here and here, complete meet results are here.

With our loss to Damien/St. Lucy’s last week, we’ve changed our dual meet strategy, allowing some of our athletes to run fewer events and giving others a chance to race on the Varsity level.

Consequently, our boys lost narrowly to Diamond Bar, while the girls won rather easily.  Top performer for the boys was senior Corey Bullock, with a nice 800/1600 double win.  Other event winners were Derrick Erwing, returning from injury in the 400, juniors Cameron Duffy (110h - 16.11 PR) and Alex Ostrowski (300h), and freshman Austin Mendoza, who led the 3200 for his first varsity win.

The girls were led by doubles from senior Shawn Miller (100/200) and soph Lauren Justus (1600/3200).  It was a strong day for the Tartans, with our girls winning 10 of the 12 events scored.  The other event winners were Makayla Jacoub (400), Johannah Murray (800), both relay teams, Catherine Chidester (discus), Kelsey Montgomery (long jump) and Jessica Levy (triple jump).

Chide’s PR discus throw of 114′ 6″ moves her to fifth on the GHS All-Time Performers List.

Complete meet results are here.

Please be sure to ammend your calendars -

The Diamond Bar dual meet will take place on Thursday, April 16 at GHS.

Earlier versions of our schedule had the meet on Wednesday, with the possibility of the meet being moved to Diamond Bar, neither of which will be happening.

Our Track boosters will meet this and next Wednesday, April 15 and 22 at 6:30 in the GHS teachers lounge in preparation for the 2009 SGV Championships Meet.

Three Tartan Individuals and one relay team represented GHS in the national level Arcadia Invitational this past weekend.  This meet brings in athletes from around the country as well as Canada and Australia for one of the strongest meets of the year.  Athletes compete at three progressively stronger levels, beginning with Friday night, then the Saturday day meet, and then the prestiegeous Invitational night meet.

Senior Catherine Chidester got things rolling Friday night as she competed in the Rising Stars division in the discus.  She shook off some recent technical problems to throw 110′ 10″, her second best throw ever, and narrowly missed advancing to the finals.

Saturday afternoon, senior Corey Bullock fought off fatigue from his third consecutive hard week of racing to finish 14th in the 3200 with a PR of 9:32.52.

In the evening invitational meet, senior Christopher Ramsey ran with the leaders for 550 meters of the 800 but then faded to a somewhat disappointing 9th place in 1:55.85.  Later in the evening our Distance Medley Relay of sophs Anthony Castro & Dillon Downard, junior Austin Goodheart and Chris Ramsey finished 20th in a time of 10:39.73, with Anthony and Austin running particularly strong legs.

Complete meet results are here.  There is extensive coverage of the meet, featuring photos, interviews, and race video at RunnerSpace and Flotrack.  You can view videos (none of which, as opposed to previous videos, feature the voice of Coach Glenn Stewart) of Chris’ 800 here and here, and video of the DMR here and here.