Redwood Girls and Boys Dominate Home Invitational

By: Krissy Hetherington

‘Tis the season of PR’s, long workouts, block starts, intense relays, and aggressive races.

On Friday, March 15, Redwood hosted their Annual Invitational featuring themselves, El Diamante, Woodlake, Corcoran, Exeter, and Robert F. Kennedy High Schools. Redwood completely swept both Girls and Boys Varsity with the team scores.

Redwood has strong depth within the team due to the friendships that started many years ago. These allow the athletes to push each other even harder than normal because it creates a new type of rivalry especially in a meet like this where most of the competition is between fellow Rangers.

There were many instances of this during the meet including Jason Hruby and Dyllan Rivera for the 100m. Both seniors and 4 year members, they constantly go back and forth in meets every single season. Hruby just so happened to pull away with the 1st place this time with a 11.35 making it his new season record but Rivera wasn’t far behind with a time of 11.66. On behalf of Rivera, Hruby said, “Competing against each other pushes us to do better.It doesn’t matter who wins or loses at the end of the day, but to know that we make each other better is what really matters.”

Another power duo is Reid Terry and Christian Roldan, sophomores who dominate together during soccer seasons and the 200m. Roldan took first this time with a new PR of 23.21 but was in a separate heat than Terry so his time ended up 23.28, a new PR.

Bailey Darnell, senior, is known for his mile performances in big meets and never fails to put out stellar times every season. This meet specifically, he swept the 1600m with a time of 4:30.05 taking first by a whole 13 seconds. So far this season he already has a 5th place at Buchanan Distance Classic, a 4th place at Sanger Spring Classic, and 1st after the Clovis East Carnival last week as well.

On the girls end, the 800 was dominated strictly by Redwood with close competition within the top 4 places, all Rangers. A very close inner team race pushed all 4 girls to work off each other and come out on top. The results are as follows: Chloe Schultz, junior, came out on top with 2:34.07, followed closely by Kylee Dismuke, senior, who accomplished a new season record of 2:34.36. Next was Mia Maciel, freshman, with 2:38.27 then Krissy Hetherington, sophomore, 2:38.31. The group looks strong across all levels going into future meets.

The girls 4×400 was the most exciting race of the day, convenient it was the last event of the meet. Corcoran led most of the relay for the first two legs, Krissy Hetherington and Jaelyn Nelson, then Redwood pulled away in the third leg, Chloe Schultz. From there, Kylee Dismuke extended the lead to finish with a 4:17.77 and a new season record.

Redwood dominated almost everything with the top 1 or 2 places per event. Their drive from this meet will lead them into another few days of workouts then a West Yosemite League tri-meet with El Diamante and Golden West on Wednesday in the Mineral King Bowl. From there they enter into the Exeter Monarch on Friday.