By Julius Pak
In the span of a month, the girls’ track and field team broke nine school records times in five meets.
The 800-meter medley team of Maddy Morency ’12, KC Cord ’11, Lauren Hansson ’11 and Cami Chapus ’12 broke the school record at Oaks Christian on March 16. Three days later, Hansson and Chapus broke school records in the 100-meter and 1600-meter events, respectively, at the Triton Invitational.
After an away win at Chaminade, Chapus broke her own record from Triton in the 1600-meter event at the Mt. Carmel Invitational.
At the prestigious Arcadia Invitational, the team of Hansson, Cord, Amy Weissenbach ’12 and Chapus not only won the sprint medley event and broke a fourth school record this season, but was 0.01 seconds off the meet record. The medley team recorded a time of 3:59.07 in the race, which also gave Hansson her 11th individual school record.
The team that won the sprint medley event also won the distance medley relay the next day, completing the women’s distance medley relay/sprint medley relay sweep. Their time of 11:40.89 was not only a new school record (the fifth of the season), but also the second fastest run in state history and the fastest time in the nation this year.
Eight days after breaking records at Arcadia, the girls’ team ran another relay with the fastest time in the nation and broke a meet record in the process at the Mt. San Antonio College Relays. Yasmin Moreno ’13, Hansson, Weissenbach and Chapus ran a time of 9:03.77 in the Girls’ 4×800-meter relay event, breaking the 2003 meet record by two seconds, and outrunning Littleton, the second place team, and Long Beach Poly, the previous holders of the meet record, by more than 15 seconds, as well as setting the nation’a fastest time in the event this year.
Hansson and Weissenbach, joined by Cord and King, also won the girls’ 1600-meter sprint medley event with another nation-leading time. The girls’ team that won the girls’ distance medley event, involving Chapus, Cord, King and Weissenbach, ran a time almost twenty seconds before any other competitor.
In the boys’ 1600-meter sprint medley relay event, Danilo Dragovic ’11, JJ Jones ’12, Judd Liebman ’12 and Ben Saunders ’11 took fourth place.
Kevin On ’11 was supposed to be a part of an all-cross-country team with Liebman, Saunders and David Manahan ’14 that placed tenth in the 4×800-meter relay, but On suffered a season-ending calf injury and was replaced by Dragovic.
On the field, Ben Gaylord ’13 tied for first in boys’ pole vault, reaching a height of 13’6″. Elena Crowe ’12 placed seventh in the girls’ division. King took third in girls’ long jump, having jumped 17’2″. Chelsea Edwards ’11 tied for sixth place in the girls’ high jump event.
Last Thursday against Marymount the girls’ team broke three more records. King broke the 100-meter record previously broken by Hansson at Triton earlier in the season with a time of 12.40, 0.15 seconds off her personal record. Hansson captured her twelfth school record when she won the 200-meter event. Chapus took her sixth school record this season, improving upon Lindsay Flack’s ’04 2004 record by almost five seconds in the 3200-meter event.
Both teams will head to Estancia High School for League Prelims on May 2.
“We hope, plan, and expect to do really well,” Head Coach Jonas Koolsbergen said. “There will be other very good squads there but we’re a good squad and we’ll be right in the mix.”
From League Prelims, those that place high in individual events will qualify for League Finals at Los Angeles Valley College May 5.
The top three from each event in League Finals will earn a chance to compete at CIF Prelims May 14 at Cerritos College.
