IVL settles its delegation for CIF track and field
Imperial Valley track and field athletes last week competed for individual honors and CIF-San Diego Section Prelims seeding at the Imperial Valley League Track and Field Individual Championship Meet.
The competition was spread over two days with the field events and the early rounds of the track events taking place Tuesday at Imperial High School, and the finals the running events taking place Thursday at El Centro’s Southwest High School.
Southwest High Assistant Track coach and IVL Meet Director Mike Becker observed the IVL Meet is the legacy of two former IVL coaches, one of whom is former Central coach Ron Shane who pioneered the IVL Meet when the Valley schools left the Desert Valleys League in the late 1990s.
“It went really smooth, it’s interesting because I ran the timer with Coach Shane and we had tons of people helping this year,” said. “Shane came up with the format that has been successful and refined it over his years as director.”
Becker also gave a shoutout long- time Brawley High track Coach Don Biagi for his emphasis on the IVL Meet being an event where all the Valley teams focused on representing the IVL.
“Coach Biagi always took the position that the IVL Meet signaled the end of the dual meet season,”Becker said. “And he believed and worked toward everybody having to pull together now and work with each other and give every kid the best chance to go as far as the can.”
On Tuesday at Imperial, as anticipated, the meet’s top boys’ field competitor was Southwest High senior Guillermo Lopez. He received the Field MVP award for a performance that included setting meet records in the shot put (59’11”), more than 10 feet better than his closest competitor, and the discus ( 163’ 02’), outdistancing the field by more than 30 feet.
In the girls’ throwing events, Brawley High dominated with two firstplace finishers in junior shot-putter Azaria Martin (32”03.5”) who captured first place while fellow Wildcat junior Sharron Lee ( 102’ 02”) won the discus.
In other girls’ field events, Brawley senior Jaqi Hernandez hit a career- high triple jump of 31’8” to edge Central junior Brianna Martin (31’04.5”) for the title.
Martin was the girls’ Field MVP. She took first place in the long jump with a personal-best 15’4.5”, edging out Brawley’s Kristin Ruelas (15’2.5”), while Imperial’s Amy Riley cleared 4’7” to claim the high jump title.
Also on Tuesday, the Central Union High boys swept the jumping events behind Spartan sophomore Arturo Estrada, who won the long jump (21’02”) and senior Aaron Solorzano (41’4”) who captured first in the triple jump.
The high jump was the only event to end in a tie, with Central’s Brian Martinez and Palo Verde Valley junior Gabriel Dagnino both clearing 5’9”.
In the only running event finals Tuesday, Brawley junior Archie Olvera (10:08.58) and Central senior Azucena Hernandez (12:12.04) claimed the 3,200-meter race titles. Hernandez (5:33.61) also won the girls 1,600 on Thursday.
Palo Verde junior Matt Robertson ran a 10.97 to take the title in the boys 100 meters on Day 2 of competition.
IVL Dual Meet champion, Central junior Charley Sullivan, decided not to run the 100 meter. Nevertheless, he ended Thursday as the meet’s boys Running MVP. He bested Robertson in the 200 with a time of 22.36 seconds and ran his second personal best of the meet to win the 400m in a time of 50.30 seconds.
Sullivan also anchored both of the Spartans winning relay teams. He joined teammates Gavin Marini, Daniel Zavala and Arturo Estrada to post a 43.2 in the 4x100m (43:21), while that same group, minus Marini and plus Aaron Solorzana, finished the 4x400 with a time of 3:27.54.
In the IVL Meet’s girls races, Brawley senior sprinter Bella Rebollar won the 100 in a personal-best time of 12.83.
The next three running events where taken by the host Southwest Eagles: Junior Jennifer Sanchez finished first in the 200 (27.12), while senior Sidney Garcia took first in the 400 (1:00.05) and 800 (2:27.96).
Garcia was female Running MVP of the meet.
The IVL Dual Meet champion Eagle girls claimed both IVL Meet relay championships, winning the 4x100 (51.10) behind the running of Garcia, Lucy Contreras, Jennifer Sanchez and Evangelina Ruvalcaba. That same group also teamed to win the girl’s 4x400 in a time of 4:14.87.
Southwest’s Charles Malone, who is ranked in the top five in the CIF-SDS in the middle distances, broke the 2-minute barrier running a 1:59.64 to win the boys 800 race. Malone also ran a personal best 4:29.07 to win the 1,600.
Also notable was the performance of Holtville junior Julian Reyna. The middle- distance runner finished second in three events: the 800 (2:04.63), the 1,600 (4:43.58) and the 3,200 (10:22.24).
“He is very versatile, and he can run anything in the 400 meters on up,” Becker said. “Unfortunately, he ran in races against runners who specialize in those events.”
The Imperial Tigers dominated the girls hurdles behind Imperial senior Natalie Lopez who a personal best 17.10 seconds to win the 100 high hurdles and then won the 300 intermediate hurdles in 50.73 seconds.
Central High’s Daniel Zavala, who entered the IVL Meet ranked first in the IVL and third in CIF’s Division III in the hurdles, won the 110 high hurdles (15.87) and the 300 intermediate (41.15).
The winners and qualifiers now move on from the Valley for CIF section competition.
“This coming weekend there will be three divisional CIF Prelims on Saturday and the top nine from those meets advance to the Masters the following Saturday,” Becker said.