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Scotts Valley High junior pole vaulter Michael Benko was flying high
after a second-place finish May 1 at the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic
League finals that propelled him into the Central Coast Section meet
May 17.
Scotts Valley High junior pole vaulter Michael Benko was flying high after a second-place finish
 Scotts Valley High pole vaulter Cleary Wunder won the SCCAL championship and set a personal best with this 11-foot, 2-inch effort. Lucjan Szewczyk/Press-Banner
“I’m still shaking,” Benko said, sitting on the grass next to the pole vault pit after the competition.
Benko’s joy was not only because he cleared a personal best 13 feet, 7 inches to qualify for sections, but also because his Eagle Scout project was an integral part of the meet.
Benko, of Scotts Valley Boy Scout Troop 604, finished building a transportable 120-foot pole vault runway from scratch just weeks before the league competition.
Meet organizers chose to use the runway, which rises about 2 feet above the ground, for the league finals.
The apparatus was set up directly in front of the grandstand at San Lorenzo Valley High School, making the pole vault competition a crowd-pleaser.
Battling nerves, Benko tied Aptos’ Daniel Gutierrez at 13-7 but placed second when it was determined he had more misses leading up to the winning height.
“I’m always nervous,” he said. “You just have to clear your head.”
The ramp can be broken up into 15 pieces and took 140 hours of work from Benko and friends to complete.
Benko’s teammates Cleary Wunder and Haylee Childs took first and second in the girls pole vault with jumps of 11-2 and 9-6, respectively.
 San Lorenzo High shot putter Paul Emert won league with a 44-foot, 1-inch effort on his last throw of the competition. Lucjan Szewczyk/Press-Banner
Scotts Valley sophomore Brittany Kuo made a name for herself as the top point scorer in the meet.
Kuo won the long jump on a final leap of 17.25 feet, breaking her personal record by 8 inches and winning by a slim half inch.
Kuo also placed second in the 100- (13.09 seconds) and 200-meter dashes (26.65).
“It was a good competition,” Kuo said. “I’m really stoked.”
The Scotts Valley 4x400 team won in a season-best three minutes, 27.74 seconds.
Junior Mike Pond cleared 6-2 in the high jump to earn second place.
San Lorenzo Valley
The Cougars were led by strong performances from their distance runners, sprinters and league-champion shot putters.
After scratching on his first throw and coming up a little short on his second, senior Paul Emert won the shot put with a throw of 44-1.
“It had me scared,” Emert said. “I was thinking, ‘I just have to get one in.’”
SLV senior Rachael Turner won the girls shot put by 1 inch with a toss of 32 feet.
Turner attributed her win to listening to her coach and “actually doing the glide.”
Fellow senior Leif Johnson topped the 400-meter run in 50.68 and pulled Scotts Valley rival Steven Haas to a second-place finish.
“The whole time, I was just thinking about Leif,” Haas said. “I just have to give him a lot of the credit. He was just pushing me the whole time.”
Johnson pulled his quad muscle and finished third in the 200.
The Cougars’ Ian McGinnis finished second to Santa Cruz’s Zeke Sanders in the 100 and 200 and helped boost the 4x100 team to second place in 44.49.
Wes McAlister took second in the discus with a toss of 118-9.
Senior Taylor Johnson won the 800 in 2:13.86, and teammate Cara Hoyt ran a personal record of 2:17.16 for second place.
The girls 4x400-meter relay team took first in 4:03.20.
Chris Proffitt finished second in the 3,200 meters in 9:42.22.
SLV’s frosh-soph teams won the boys and girls championships with strong showings by their distance runners.
League finals
Boys varsity
Aptos: 160
Santa Cruz: 98
SLV: 82
Scotts Valley: 78
Harbor: 38
St Francis C.C.: 19
Soquel: 19
Girls varsity
Aptos: 167
Santa Cruz: 83
Scotts Valley: 80
Harbor: 77
SLV: 64
St Francis C.C.: 16
Soquel: 5
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