ST. HELENA — Three Lake County athletes won events while many others punched their ticket to next weekend’s North Coast Section qualifying meets with strong performances Saturday at the Coastal Mountain Conference Track & Field Championships in St. Helena.
Clear Lake, Kelseyville, Middletown and Upper Lake athletes finishing in the top eight at St. Helena advance to the Class A Championships next Saturday at Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa while Lower Lake athletes placing in the top four move on to the Redwood Empire Championships next Saturday at Petaluma High School. Lower Lake athletes are separated in the sectional round because the school has a bigger enrollment.
Boys
All three county event winners were Middletown varsity boys. Nadav Dicovski won the triple jump at 40 feet, ¼ inch, Brody Breeden topped the field in the shotput with a throw of 40-8 ½, and Roberto Chaires won the discus with a toss of 124-5.
Other county athletes advancing to the sectional round in the triple jump were Lower Lake’s Mitchell Noble (37-2), Clear Lake’s Jadin Vestal (35-3 ½) and Middletown’s Edward Johnston (33-4).
In the shotput, Lower Lake’s Elijah Cooke came in second (40-3/4) while Middletown’s Chaires was third (38-9 ¼). Cooke also placed second in the discus (117-8) and will advance to the sectionals in that event as well as will Breeden, who was third at 94-3.
In other field events, Vestal placed fourth in the high jump (5-6) and Breeden (5-4) was sixth. Orel Gosman of Clear Lake advances to the sectional in the long jump with a fifth-place leap of 18-7.
Also moving on are Middletown’s Baron Chang and Bryan Sanchez in the pole vault, an event Chang came in first at 8-6 followed by Sanchez in second place at 7-0.
In running events, Upper Lake’s Erick Espinoza is advancing to the sectional in both the 100 meters and 200. He was the runner-up in the 100 (11.28 seconds) and fifth in the 200 (24.56). Clear Lake’s Tyler Haskell came in seventh in the 100 (11.73) while Middletown’s Emmanuel Montes was eighth in the 200 (25.23).
Middletown’s Dicovski (55.04) and Parker Boden (56.83) placed second and sixth, respectively, in the 400 to earn sectional berths.
Other sectional qualifiers are Upper Lake’s Donovan Fernandez, who placed third in the 3,200 (11 minutes, 53.57 seconds) and Middletown’s Evan Macklin, who was fourth in the 300 hurdles (48.73) and eighth in the 1,600 (5:09.08); and Sanchez, who was sixth in the 110 hurdles (22.60).
Middletown also will send both its 4×100 and 4×400 relay teams to the sectional meet. The 4×400 team of Boden, Montes, Macklin and Dicovski finished second in 3:53.13. The same four runners came in third in the 4×100 (47.75).
Girls
Clear Lake’s Hannah Garrity, a sophomore, is advancing to the sectional meet in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200. Her second-place time of 5:13.36 in the 1,600 was a personal best. She also finished second in the 3,200 (11:50.76) and third in the 800 (2:29). Athena Ryan of Sonoma Academy won all three events.
Also qualifying for sectionals in those three events were Middletown’s Cat Barriga (fifth in 2:45.89) and Nicole Pyzer (sixth in 2:47.72) in the 800; Pyzer (third in 6:05.64), Barriga (sixth in 6:11.92) and Middletown’s Viridiana Torres (seventh in 6:51.59) in the 1,600; and Isabella Barriga (fourth in 14:52.07) in the 3,200.
Middletown’s Amanda Hart and Georgia Guerrero and Kelseyville’s Elizabeth Walker qualified in two individual events apiece. Hart finished second in the shotput (28-7 ¾) and third in the discus, Guerrero was fourth in the 400 (1:05.29) and fifth in the 200 (28.46), and Walker placed second in the high jump (4-0) and sixth in the 100 (13.59).
Other sectional qualifiers, all from Middletown, were Skylar William (fourth in the 300 hurdles, 54.58) and Mariah Ketchum (fourth in the high jump, 4-0, and sixth in the 300 hurdles, 58.54), Deisi Perez (third in the high jump, 4-0), Torres (seventh in the pole vault, 6-0), Sofia Rivera (fifth in the triple jump, 27-5 ½), and Krystal Ocken (fourth in the shotput (27-5) and fifth in the discus (72-9).
Upper Lake’s Tatum Salas had an eighth-place finish in the discus (67-2).
Middletown’s 4×100 relay team of Pyzer, Ketchum, Guerrero and Cat Barriga also earned the right to advance with a second-place time of 4:44.56. The school’s 4×100 team of Guerrero, Williams, Rivera and Isabella Barriga placed fourth in 55.28.
Meet of Champions
The top three finishers at the Class A Championships in Santa Rosa and top six finishers at the Redwood Empire Championships in Petaluma this coming weekend continue on to the Meet of Champions May 20-21 at Dublin High School. The Meet of Champions is the qualifier for the CIF State Track & Field Championships May 27-28 at Veterans Memorial Stadium at Buchanan High School in Clovis.
