By Riley Segal
Staff Writer
The track team competed at league preliminaries hosted at South Pas on Tuesday, May 3. Only a fraction of the total events at a usual meet took place, as the ones in preliminaries were necessary to narrow down the number of competitors for league finals. The 1600 meters, 400 meters, 100 meters, 300 meter hurdles, and 200 meters were the only varsity events that took place. The Tigers qualified several athletes into league finals.
South Pas placed six athletes into the boys’ 1600 meter race out of ten available spots in the finals, led by junior Kieran Press-Reynolds and sophomore Oliver Chang. The distance girls followed in a similar fashion, taking up five out of ten entries in the 1600 meters. Freshman Elizabeth Bock was the frontrunner, garnering the fastest time of 5:46.34.
In the 400 meters, the girls asserted dominance yet again, qualifying four athletes into the finals, where only seven lanes are available. Freshman Christina Taylor swept her competition by winning first overall and earning a new personal record of 58.76 seconds. However, the boys would have no such success as they would not produce any results that would enable them to compete in finals. The Tigers continued to impress in the 300 meter hurdles, with senior Alexis Mora,juniors Kate Kutzer, and Caroline Becronis advancing to league finals. Senior Esteban Suarez was the lone South Pas runner in the boys’ 300 meter hurdles, and proceeded to capture first with a time of 42.49 seconds.
The Tigers sent four girls to finals in the 100 meter dash, while senior Jonathan Jackson-Williams and sophomore Jack Renken qualified in that event for the boys. Jackson-Williams and Renken also placed highly enough in the 200 meter dash to move forward. Three South Pas girls, including Taylor, will compete in the 200 meters at league finals as well. The Tigers are sending 25 athletes to finals, not counting those that have automatically qualified in other events.
“I think we have a really strong team this year, and that we’re going to do really well at finals,” Kutzer said. “Hopefully those performances will allow us to go far in CIF.”
League finals are on Friday, May 6 at home, where the Tigers hope to send as many athletes as possible to CIF.