By: Krissy Hetherington
On Saturday, March 30th, around 20 athletes from Redwood Track and Field qualified to run at one of the most prestigious meets and the 2nd oldest in the state. The meet took place at Buchanan and was mostly split up into three heats per event, in order of competition level: Open, Seeded, and highest Invitational. 1st and 2nd place were given small medal key chains in Seeded and Invitational winners and second place were rewarded with a huge medal. Awards or not, Redwood excelled at this competitive meet and took away lessons and PR’s for the future.
Rangers had the perfect opportunity to PR and get some great times for upcoming Invitationals as well due to the perfect weather and competition levels. Although most athletes only qualify for 1 or at most 2 events, it’s a fun day spent in Clovis watching some of the best races and field events between lots of across the state teams and their best athletes. Personally, I was in awe of the times and was able to watch big names as they ran their best races and could take mental notes on their form and agility.
Redwood proved great competition despite the small team that went and here are some of the big results:
- 4×400 Seeded- 1st place 4:08.89 *PR (Jaelyn Nelson, Krissy Hetherington, Mckenna Cook, and Kylee Dismuke)
- Shot Put Invitational- 2nd place 41′ 3.25 Denae Jackson
- Triple Jump Seeded- 3rd place 34′ 6 *SR Kaiya Thompson
- 100m Open- 3rd place 11.56 Jason Hruby
- 200m Open- 3rd place 22.99 *PR Christian Roldan
- 300m H Invitational- 1st place 39.65 Brandon Andrade
- 1600m Invitational- 6th place 4:23.03 *PR Bailey Darnell
- 1600m Open- 2nd place 4:33.03 *PR Ryan Hemphill
- 800m Seeded- 1st place 2:00.02 *PR Bailey Darnell
- 800m Seeded- 8th place 2:23.49 *PR Chloe Schultz
- 400m Open- 3rd place 52.12 *PR Alex Fontes
- 400m Seeded- 2nd place 50.62 *PR Christian Roldan
So as you can tell, Redwood took home some hardware and were given the chance to get some good times to qualify for bigger meets coming up such as the Mt. Sac Relays, Sanger Metric, and Sanger Spring Classic. The next meet for Redwood is the dual meet vs. Lemoore at Home at 4:15 on Wednesday, April 3rd. Stay tuned also as a few athletes qualified for the Arcadia Invitational this upcoming week as well.
Right now, Redwood is looking very strong going into the rest of their league meets and upcoming meets against outer-league competition to prepare them for Valley in May.
Krissy Hetherington
Krissy ('21) is a senior and this is her third year as Editor in Chief. She has been in Journalism since beginning of freshman year and has a strong passion for sports journalism. Outside of the Gigantea, Krissy is a part of the Cross Country, Basketball and Track teams. She is also in her third year as an intern writer for the Sun-Gazette. You can reach her by email at krist.he0076@vusd.us
