A host of athletes from San Lorenzo Valley and Scotts Valley high schools qualified for the Central Coast Section championship with strong showings at the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League finals on May 7.
Though both the Falcons and Cougars boast very young teams, both showed well as athletes from San Lorenzo Valley High School qualified in 28 events and from Scotts Valley 13 events. They will compete at the CCS semi-finals at Gilroy High School starting at 9:30 a.m. May 22.
San Lorenzo Valley
Boys: The Cougar boys finished third with 121 points behind winner Santa Cruz (151) and second place Aptos High (128). Junior, Jonny Cooper spearheaded the sprinting events for the rejuvenated Cougar sprinters. Cooper won the 400 and took third in the 200 meter dash.
The Cougar’s distance runners dominated the middle-distance races.
Cody Johnson, Nick Hicks and Landis MacMillan took first, second and third in the 1600. Hicks and MacMillan also took No.1 and 2 in the 3200 while Johnson won the 800 with a time of 1:58.85.
Sophomore, Lucas Sinnott, broke the school frosh-soph pole vault record by six inches by clearing 12 feet while taking third. Sinnott also took second place in the long jump clearing 20 feet, 1 inch.
Girls:
The Cougar girls took third with 71 points behind Aptos (164) and Santa Cruz (124). Freshman Anna Maxwell led the charge winning the 3200 meter and finishing second behind Aptos phenom Nikki Hiltz in the 1600. Pole vaulter Amanda Lackides cleared 10-6 inches, setting a new personal record.
Sophomore throwing specialist, Cameron Kellogg repeated as league champion in the shot put, and took second in the discus.
“We had a very good showing of our talent pool, and (our team) be well represented at the CCS meet,” SLV coach Rob Collins said.
Collins has said that although many of his athletes qualified for multiple venues, they would be focusing more on single events at the CCS meet to maximize their opportunity to reach the state meet.
Scotts Valley High
Boys: The Falcon boys took fourth with 33 points. Alex Benko won the pole vault by clearing 13 feet and high jumper Evan Hilton tied for first, clearing 6-0. Junior Kevin Bargetto took fourth in the 100 meter dash in 11.66.
Girls: Ranae Maloney led the Falcon girls with a win in the 300 meter hurdles in 47.72, and a third place finish in the 100 meter hurdles. Teammate Vanessa Fraser, a sophomore, took second place in the 3200 meters.
Alex Kalinowski took second in the 100 meter hurdles, Jessica Romeo took third in the 400 meters in 1:00.74 and Aby Utic ran a strong 1600 meters for the Falcons and qualified for CCS.
