Casa Grande girls relay team sets Empire record

The Casa Grande girls 4x100 relay team started the Redwood Empire Championship Meet by setting a Redwood Empire record.|

The Casa Grande 4x100 girls relay team gets better with every meet. The quartet Casa coach Jamie Pugh calls “the best ever at Casa Grande,” proved the coach’s accolade again Saturday, not only bettering their own school record, but setting a Redwood Empire best in the process in the Redwood Empire Championship meet held at Piner High School in Santa Rosa.

Casa’s fantastic four of Annie Gallo, Jordan Boehning, Hannah Barlow and Destiny Williams hit every hand off perfectly as they zipped to an Empire record 49.10 win, The record had stood since 1985. Casa’s effort was more than a half second faster than the team’s own previous school mark and .49 seconds faster than runner-up Maria Carrillo.

The Casa Grande record-setting relay was the highlight, but not the only success for Petaluma teams in the big meet which brought together the best track athletes from tne North Bay League, Sonoma County League, Marin Catholic Athletic League and the Humboldt-Del Norte League in a qualifying meet for this weekend,s North Coast Section Meet of Champions on the track at the University of California at Berkeley. The top seven finishers in each event at Piner qualified for the MOC.

Casa Grande got the meet off to a spectacular start. Three races into the event, Casa had three MOC qualifiers.

The Casa Grande boys 4x100 relay team followed the girls with an excellent effort to nip Del Norte for seventh and a trip to the MOC. The Gaucho team of Grant Davis, Mathew Mason, Ajquiy Edwin and Dulio Foes was timed in 44.86 to 44.88 for Del Norte.

In the first individual race of the day, Casa Grande senior Adria Barich stayed with Santa Rosa’s dominating Delaney White for three laps of the 1600, before the Panther pulled away to win in 4:59.12. Barich was a MOC-qualifying second in 5:01.02.

Another outstanding Gaucho was junior Zachary Esponda. The NBL champion at 800 meters, Exponda was a close second to Mesgne Neghasi of Tamalpais Saturday, running 1:56.98 to the winner’s 1:56.19.

Petaluma sophomore Will Dunbar ran a SCL best 1:58.75 to finish seventh and qualify for advancement. His twin brother, Jack, was 11th in 2:01.02.

Another Gaucho NBL winner, 300-meter intermediate hurdler Aaron Lu, was beaten by Max Herrerias of Novato, but easily qualified for the MOC, finishing second in 41.38. The winner was timed in 40.65. Lu’s teammate, junior Noble Schlueter, gave the Gauchos two hurdlers in the next meet, finishing fifth in 42.41.

Petaluma sophomore Brendon O’Neil, who won all three jumps – high, long and triple – at the SCL meet, gave the Trojans a winner, taking the triple jump at 41-05.00, a full foot further than runner-up Mazi Macondray of Santa Rosa. On a day of occasionally misting rain that made the jump approaches tenuous, he was eighth in the long jump at 19-04.5 and 15 in the high jump at 5-06.

A pair of Trojans qualified for the MOC in the throwing events, with Travis Plank seventh in the shot at 43-0 and Justen Santa fourth in the discus at 146-0.

Williams, a senior, had a big meet for the Casa Grande girls. In addition to anchoring the record-setting 4x100 relay, she ran a leg on the Casa 4x400 team that qualified sixth in 4:15.75 and was a qualifying fifth in the 200 in 26.70.

Other members of the 4x400 team were Elizabeth Martin, Barich and Alexandra Sheeks.

Barlow will give Casa two sprinters in the MOC after finishing seventh in the 100 in 13.32.

Petaluma qualified two distance runners for advancement.

SCL leader Madison Parratt, a senior, was a solid fourth in the 3200 in 11:29.15 and freshman Camille Flynn was sixth in the 800 in 2:22.l38.

Trojan Clare Pierce, a junior, finished sixth in the shot at 33-03.75.

In addition to individual honors, team scores were kept, with Santa Rosa (77) defeating Maria Carrillo (61), reversing the order of finish in the NBL meet held the week before, in the girls competition. Casa Grande’s girls were 10th as a team with 21 points. Marin Catholic had too much depth for Maria Carrillo in the boys competition, winning the meet with 61 points to 54 for the NBL champion Pumas, with Santa Rosa third with 52.50. Casa Grande finished 12th with 19. Petaluma was 14th with 14.

NCS 1A

St. Vincent qualified two athletes for the Meet of Champions at the North Coast Section 1A meet held at Montgomery High School. The top three finishers in each event qualified for advancement.

Senior Chase Doolittle finished second in the 400-meter run in 51.95, just behind Fort Bragg’s Paul Gorman, Jr (51.71).

The Mustangs’ Olivia DeGraca was third in the long jump at 16-04. She also finished fourth in the triple jump at 34-03.

The NCS Meet of Champions is the final step prior to the state meet. The top three finishers in each event at the MOC advance to the California Interscholastic Federation meet June 4-5 in Clovis.

UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy:
  • This is a family newspaper, please use a kind and respectful tone.
  • No profanity, hate speech or personal attacks. No off-topic remarks.
  • No disinformation about current events.
  • We will remove any comments — or commenters — that do not follow this commenting policy.