By Julius Pak
At the 2012 Arcadia Invitational this past weekend, the track teams set a pair of school records and nation-leading times in both the sprint medley and distance medley events by the boys’ and girls’ teams, respectively. Varsity cross-country stars Aaron de Toledo ’12, Judd Liebman ’12, and David Manahan ’14 joined Garrett Robinson ’15 to an eleventh place finish in the distance medley event in 10:18.76, a new school record. The previous night, David Olodort ’12 took de Toledo’s place in the relay team for the sprint medley event. The team finished the relay in just over three and a half minutes, the fourth fastest time run by a California team this season, to break another school record. The two times were also the twelfth and thirteenth fastest times, respectively, in the nation this season.
Within an hour of each record-breaking event from the boys’ team, the girls’ track team defended their meet titles at Arcadia Field in the sprint medley and distance medley events. During the Friday night relays, co-captains Cami Chapus ’12 and Amy Weissenbach ’12 paired with freshman duo Imani Cook-Gist ’15 and Shea Copeland ’15 to a national leading time in the sprint medley event, finishing nearly ten seconds faster than the runner-up. The next afternoon, the same team, save for a substitution of cross-country teammate Elle Wilson ’13 for Cook-Gist, competed in the distance medley event.
Weissenbach gave the quartet an early lead, one that was held on by Copeland and Wilson in the next two legs. However, the baton fell during the pass-off to Chapus right before the final leg, allowing two other runners to pass Chapus before she could recover. Despite the error, Chapus pulled ahead in the last 400 meters of the race to give the Wolverines an eight-second margin over second-place Redondo Union and to salvage the Wolverines’ defenses of both the sprint and distance medley events. The result was also the second time at the same meet that the girls’ track team set a new leading time for the season nationally in an event, breaking the previously-held time by more than fifteen seconds.
