Guasti wins two jumps in track and field loss to Broncos
By Joe Naiman
Although Rancho Bernardo High School’s boys track and field team left Ramona with an 85-49 victory over the Bulldogs in a Palomar League dual meet, Ramona won six of the 16 events against the defending CIF Division I champions — including two first-place jumping distances from Connor Guasti.
Guasti had distances of 19 feet 11 inches in the long jump and 39 feet 1/2 inch in the triple jump to win both events on April 11. The long jump also saw Jake Gallegos earn his first varsity point after a third-place distance of 19’1”.
Guasti actually had three winning efforts, as he was on the 4x400 relay team that won its race. Cesar Corona, Francisco Corona, Guasti, and Javier Dominguez had a time of 3:39.2.
“We had some good efforts,” said Coach Sherri Edwards. “I thought we did pretty good.”
The two teams split the first-place points for the six field events. Ramona’s Preston Johnson had a season-best throw of 47 feet 8 inches to win the shot put. Johnson also had a third-place discus throw of 108 feet 10 inches.
Ramona’s other two winners posted their first varsity victories in an individual race, and in both cases they defeated Rancho Bernardo runners by 2/10 of a second. Junior Cesar Corona had a time of 53.1 seconds in the 400-meter run and senior Jose Pilar won the 800-meter race in 2:05.6.
Ramona took second and third in two of the distance races. Tristan Stidham’s time of 4:35.6 in the 1,600-meter event gave him second place while Alec Richardson finished next at 4:46.3. Forrest Riley had a 3,200-meter time of 9:48.8 to take second in that race while Anthony Jauregui posted a third-place time of 10:33.7.
Dominguez finished second in his two individual sprint races, taking 11.2 seconds in the 100-meter dash and 23.4 seconds in the 200-meter dash.
Ramona took third in both hurdles races; Dustin Hager raced in the 110-meter hurdles for 17.9 seconds, and Mackenzie Cahill had a 46.1-second performance in the 300-meter hurdles.
The Bulldogs spent April 14 at the Jaguar Invitational hosted by Valley Center High School. Cory Thomas had a time of 10:02.9 in the 3,200-meter race to take third place, and Donny McKay had the sixth-place time of 10:14.8. Graham Gantzer took fourth in the 1,600-meter race at 4:38.1 while Richardson’s time of 4:38.7 gave him fifth place. Stidham took 2:05.2 in the 800-meter race to place sixth. Guasti’s high jump of 5 feet 4 inches shared fourth place.
The Bulldogs will travel to Mount Carmel for an April 25 league meet.