Benefield: Maria Carrillo eyes big day at track meet
Greg Fogg wants to do something historic.
Rare as it is for a school to win both the girls’ and boys’ team titles at the North Coast Section Redwood Empire championship meet (the last school to do it was Petaluma in 2009), rarer still is the program that is able to win both titles back-to-back. In fact, under the current competition configuration that has been in place since 1995, no team has won both the girls’ and boys’ titles back-to-back.
“It is very important for Maria Carrillo,” Pumas head coach Fogg said of the team titles. “Being good at both boys and girls speaks volumes relative to your program.
“I’m looking to try and do what has never been done before,” he said. “We have that special group of seniors to make it happen.”
The meet at Santa Rosa High will send the top seven finishers in each event from the NCS Redwood division on to the NCS Meet of Champions May 25-26.From there, it’s on to the CIF state meet in Clovis June 1-2.
But first things first.
Leading the charge Saturday for the Pumas is the boys’ 4-by-400 relay team - the top-ranked squad in the North Coast Section with a time of 3:18.73 posted at the Sacramento Meet of Champions April 28.
“We are seven seconds ahead of everybody else and we plan on running faster,” Fogg said. “We are hoping to podium at state.”
But as Fogg well knows, relays are tricky. His excellent girls’ 4-by-100 relay team nearly didn’t move on from the North Bay League championship meet last Friday after an errant handoff almost disqualified them. That miscue put a very fast foursome in the slowest heat Saturday - something Fogg said will challenge his team.
The weather at the NBL meet was the worst some coaches had seen in decades, putting sprinters a half-second off their standard times in some cases. And jumps were hampered by powerful headwinds as well.
But Fogg said the exchange that nearly cost his girls’ team their spot Saturday didn’t have anything to do with weather. He also said his team has the talent to make up for their gaffe.
“The fastest times move on,” he said. “It all just depends on how much they let themselves get pumped up for it.”
The squad ran the sixth-fastest time in the section - 49.30 - at the Viking Track Classic in April.
And like no school ever winning back-to-back boys’ and girls’ Redwood titles, Fogg said he thinks there has never been a 4-by-100 relay team to win the event coming out of the slowest heat. He has issued his team a challenge: see if they can pull it off.
Santa Rosa has a commanding seed time in the girls’ 4-by-400 relay, having posted a remarkable 3:59.9 at the NBL finals in dreadful conditions. Their time puts them as the second-fastest crew in the section.
A key race, not for team title points but simply for gutty speed, is expected to be the boys’ 400-meter showdown between the re-emerging Jaymes Tischbern of Montgomery and Marin Catholic’s Max Glasser.
Tischbern, who has been stymied in his senior year by injury, ran a 48.99 in the rough conditions last Friday.
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That time puts him 11th on the all-time Redwood Empire list. Glasser’s seed time was 50.9 but he ran a personal best of 47.3 seconds at the Stanford Invitational March 21.
Maria Carrillo senior Tyler Van Arden qualified in poor conditions with a 49.57.
Another good head-to-head battle should be Maria Carrillo’s senior hurdle ace Habibah Sanusi and McKinleyville senior Lizzie Dolan.
Both qualified with times on the plus side of 15 seconds, but both have proven capable of going faster. Dolan recorded a 14.85 at the Humboldt Del Norte White Star meet May 12 and Sanusi ran a personal best of 14.88 at the Arcadia Invitational in April.
Sanusi said she is targeting a time of “mid-14” in the race.
In the 300-meter hurdles, it’s again Sanusi versus Dolan, but with the added speed of two Tamalpais stars: junior Lauren Ross and sophomore Mikayla Lin.
And Sanusi’s seed time of 12.84 is not her best, so she and Redwood sophomore Nava Khan should put on a show in the 100 meters.
In the boys’ 300-meter hurdles, Montgomery junior Brent Oru-Craig is the only racer to have posted a sub-40-second seed time. Oru-Craig is currently ranked No. 4 in the section.
Maria Carrillo’s senior speedster Severin Ramirez was hammered on his seed times by the harsh conditions Friday, but track watchers said his raw talent will see him through Saturday.
“Kids like him are going to advance. He’s just too fast,” Santa Rosa coach Doug Courtemarche said.
Ramirez has a seed time for Saturday’s meet of 11.42 - well below the 10.94 he ran at the NBL trials two days before. His qualifying time in the 200 meters was 22.45, also below his best. He, like Tischbern, will have to battle Marin Catholic’s Glasser for the win. Santa Rosa’s Trevien Prince, just a sophomore, and Carrillo’s Van Arden will also be in the mix.
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