Wildcats top tri-meet
BRAWLEY — Combining a weather-canceled track meet with their final Imperial Valley League meet, the Brawley Union High boys and girls track teams defeated the Imperial High Tigers and Calexico High Bulldogs to win a double-dual meet here on Thursday.
Brawley defeated Imperial 88-39 in the boys’ matchup and squeezed by the Tiger girls 67-60, while the Wildcats beat Calexico’s boys 96-31 and the Bulldog girls 80-47.
“I like the double-dual or old tri-meet format because the kids are pushing harder because of the competition,” said second-year Brawley head coach Marcial Tagabon. “I have some freshman who qualified (Thursday) for IVLs next week because of the quality of the other competitors.”
Brawley’s Isaac Garcia had a big day, winning the 200- and 400-meter dashes and running on the winning 4x100 relay team.
The meet capped a big day for the Wildcat senior, who earlier in the afternoon had signed a letter of intent to run track at Azusa Pacific University.
Garcia’s teammate Adrian Chavez won the 100-meter dash, finished second in the 200 meters and was also on the winning 4x100 relay team.
Brawley’s original meet with Imperial was canceled because of inclement weather earlier this month, and Tiger coach Wolfgang Horner also felt the double-dual format was successful.
“I think it worked out well .... The fact that we had a high pool of talent, especially in the varsity heats, makes everyone better,” Horner said. “Calexico and Brawley both have good teams, and it pushed everybody up.”
Horner’s Imperial girls’ team set two school records at the meet, the first was in the 1600-meter race, where Caitlin Brown set a new record by covering the distance in 5 minutes and 42 seconds, shaving 14 seconds off the old record which had stood since 2005.
The second Imperial record to fall was in the 100-meter hurdle, where the record set in 2016 was 17.09 seconds.
Jessica Dick broke the school mark and became the Imperial Valley leader in the event when she recorded a 16.81.
Calexico coach Cindy Leyvas, who gave up a home meet against Brawley to participate in the double-dual, felt the event was good preparation for next week’s Imperial Valley League preliminary meet and CIF Qualifier.
“Sometimes this time of the season, key athletes skip events, but it was very competitive today,” Leyvas said. “For us, we have had several seniors injured this season, and so our JV team and others have been pushed into the spotlight, and they responded today with personal bests.”
The IVL prelim meet will begin on Tuesday afternoon at 1 p.m. at Central Union High and conclude Thursday with the finals at Palo Verde Valley.