Girls track and field finishes 2-2 in dual meets, prepares for league
By Joe Naiman
Although Ramona High girls track and field did not win the Valley League team championship, the Bulldogs finished with a 2-2 record after defeating Oceanside by a 72-59 score on the Pirates’ track.
The league champion team is determined by the results of dual meets.
The opportunity for individual league championships and qualifiers for the CIF meet will begin May 13 with preliminary races and field events at Valley Center High School and will conclude in that stadium with the May 16 league finals.
“We have things to work on this week, but I’m happy to have a week to work on it,” said head coach Sherri Edwards.
The Bulldogs are inactive from competition until the league preliminaries. Some Ramona athletes competed at the May 3 Dick Wilkins Frosh-Soph Invitational at Del Norte High School while others have not had a meet since the May 2 Escondido Invitational. Two of Ramona’s top athletes, sprinter Holly Stallman and jumper Courtney Ford, will take advantage of the lack of competition to try to heal injuries.
Stallman, who normally competes in four events, was scratched from three races during the April 30 meet at Oceanside. The temperature at the campus just west of Interstate 5 reached 97 degrees.
“It was hotter in Oceanside than it was in Ramona,” Edwards said.
Stallman’s first scheduled event was the high jump. She cleared 4 feet, 8 inches to take first place, but her back started to hurt afterwards. A visit to Ramona’s trainer replaced plans for Stallman to run in three events, and the diagnosis of a sprained back kept the sophomore out of the frosh-soph meet.
“Hopefully she’ll be able to run at the prelims next week,” Edwards said. “It’s good that we have this bye week.”
Ford, who has a strained quad muscle, hasn’t competed since Ramona’s April 24 dual meet against Valley Center.
“Everybody else was able to step it up a notch,” said Edwards.
Victory eluded Ramona’s 4x100 relay team which normally includes Ford and Stallman, but the Bulldogs’ 4x400 relay quartet of Emily Sojourner, Teresa Leon, Tuesday Christopher and Katherine Lorentz won their race with a 4:26.0 performance.
Leon was beaten by her own teammate in the 800-meter run; Anna Sundrud won that race in 2:38.04 while Leon finished in 2:39.00 for second place. The Bulldogs also took the top two finishes in the 3,200-meter race with Perla Cruz winning in 13:42.80 and Francheska Gonzalez racing for 14:27.04. Cruz also won the 1,600-meter race, finishing in 6:01, while Gonzalez was third at 6:21.
“My distance girls really came through for me,” Edwards said.
Karah Banegas also won two events for Ramona, throwing the shot put 33-11 and the discus 101-5. Valissa Espinoza hurled the discus 79-3 to give Ramona the third-place point.
Ramona had the top two pole vault distances; Courtney Jackson cleared 10 feet while Kim Klarer vaulted 9 feet.
Lorentz was the winner of the 400-meter race, completing her lap in 1:04.04.
Stallman’s absence likely cost Ramona first-place points in the 100-meter and 200-meter races, but in the 100-meter dash Hannah Farhat finished second with a time of 13.26 seconds. The 200-meter dash saw Morgan Wilson place second at 27.9 seconds and Farhat take third with a time of 28.7 seconds. In the 100-meter hurdles race Sojourner finished second at 17.5 seconds with Wilson placing third due to an 18.1-second performance.
Sojourner was also second in the 300-meter hurdles at 50.3 seconds while freshman Sarah Mitchell earned her first varsity point with a third-place time of 52.7 seconds. Christopher had a third-place long jump of 14 9-1/2.
The Escondido Invitational included both invitational races or flights and open competitions. Jackson cleared 11-1 to win the invitational pole vault while clearing 11 feet for the first time in four meets.
“Doing that this week was, I think, really good for her,” Edwards said.
Klarer cleared 8-7 to win the open pole vault; her distance ranked 11th overall.
The Dick Wilkins Frosh-Soph Invite had invitational races and flights and seeded events. Stallman was scratched from the invitational competition, but Sojourner gave Ramona a win in the seeded sophomore 300-meter hurdles race which took her 48.78 seconds.
“That was really exciting,” Edwards said.
Sierra Crenshaw, Christopher, Jessica Middleton and Wilson comprised Ramona’s 4x100 relay team which took third place with a time of 52 seconds. Lorentz finished fifth in the sophomore-seeded 400-meter race while setting a personal record of 1:03.63. Cruz ran the sophomore 1,600-meter event; her time of 5:48.22 also placed fifth and set a personal record. Christopher was sixth in the freshman-seeded 400-meter race with a time of 1:04.52.