Depth carries Lodi past St. Mary’s on the track

The Lodi High boys track and field team scored a big victory on Thursday, with a 70-66 victory over St. Mary’s at Lodi High.

“Pretty big, early decider in the championship for the TCAL,” Lodi coach Greg Wright said. “We have the league meet left, and the dual meet is the tiebreaker. So if we both end up 9-1 after the league meet, this will break that tie.

“The kids really came up big today. It was epic.”

Erik Ebert was a doublewinner for the Flames, taking the 400 at 49.66 seconds and the 200 at 22.26 seconds. Other Lodi winners came from the field side, with Jayvin Herrejon winning the shot put at 47 feet even, Daniel Silva winning the pole vault at 11 feet even, Damien Biegler winning the high jump at 5 feet, 10 inches and Darrius Hart winning the triple jump at 10 feet 1/5 inches.

But it was the Flames’ depth that carried them, with athletes bring points home with second- and third-place finishes.

“The distance runners, they went against Karl Winter, one of the best runners in the state, and Karl won all three races, but our guys made sure to take those seconds and thirds,” Wright said. “Erik Ebert in two races, he came up huge, and in the other race he didn’t run well, and thought he let us down. He didn’t. He won the 400 and 200, which was big, because St. Mary’s is a sprinting school.”

The Flames had secondplace finishes in 12 of 15 events, and third place in 10 of 14 events.

The girls competition wasn’t as close, with Lodi winning 122-13 and winning 15 of 16 events. Paige Sefried led the way with three victories, taking the 100 at 12.55, the 300 hurdles at 50.2 and the 200 at 26.86.

Double-winners included Ruth Hernandez in the 1,600 at 5:50 and the 3,200 at 13:54, and Emily Dubois in the long jump at 16 feet 0.5 inches and the triple jump at 34-1.

Single winners for the Flames included Jamie Davis in the pole vault (8-0), Katrina Chang in the high jump (4-6), Jackie Westerterp in the 100 hurdles (17.633), Naomi Gonzalez in the discus (90-11), Brooke Aberle in the 800 (2:34) and Kaylie Sauerland in the shot put (28-10.5).