Marauders win Tulare County Meet
Monache High School track and field teams defeated seven schools to win the boys and girls divisions of the Tulare County Championships Meet at Jacob Rankin Stadium on Friday, beating out second place Mt. Whitney 157.5-143 in the boys and 146.91-126.5 in the girls.
“This is a special team that showed they are still contenders for the [East Yosemite League] championship title,” MHS head coach Seth Ishida said. “The last time a Porterville Unified school won the County Championships was Porterville in 1994. I want to thank Mcdonald’s on Henderson and the Exchange Club of Porterville for sponsoring the event. It was a night enjoyed by all participants.”
The Marauders were down by four points with all the running events completed and just the high jump and triple jump left.
“It was an amazing atmosphere at the end of the meet,” Ishida said. “Athletes were clapping in unison for each athlete as they took their approach runs and pumped up each of the last seven finalists in the triple and high jump events.”
Joey Vath hit a big triple jump of 43-feet 1-inch to tie Golden West’s Zack Glick and win with the second longest jump to break the tie. Glick is ranked No.4 in the CIF Central Section.
Monache won all six distance races from 800 meters up to 3,200 in the boys and girls divisions. Marilou Ruiz hit a personal record and ran the seventh fastest time in the Valley 1,600 with a personal record of 5 minutes and 12.38 seconds, narrowly placing ahead of Imelda Suarez (5:17.88).
“Imelda and Marilou are running very well right now,” Ishida said. “We are making some progress towards being in the top three at the Valley Meet to qualify for State.”
Mikayli Moore won gold in the girls 400 with a 1:03.38 and ran an outstanding leg on the winning 4x400 relay team with Marilou Ruiz, Laila Alghonaym and Alyssa Quinones.
Montrecee Fields was second in the long jump with a 20-9 leap to pull ahead of Kobe Dennison of Porterville and Ian Kelly of Golden West.
“Fields and Vath sealed the deal with the boys and Kelci Seaman was second with a 32-foot jump to get us the final points we needed in the girls,” Ishida said.
BOYS TENNIS
T. Western 7 Monache 2
Monache High School boys tennis fell 7-2 to Tulare Western in Monday’s East Yosemite League match in Tulare.
The Marauders wins came from No. 5 Johnny Hu coming back after a 6-4 first set loss to win the next set 6-4 and the tiebreaker 10-6. Monache’s No. 3 doubles team of Arvin Sahagan and Angel Cabrera also won their match 8-5. Delano 5 Porterville 4
Porterville High School boys tennis fell 5-4 at home to Delano in Monday’s East Yosemite League match.
In singles No. 4 Juan Cerros won 6-3, 6-0 and
No. 6 Noah Sanchez won 6-1, 6-4. The Panthers almost swept doubles for the win but lost the No. 3 match 8-2. The No. 1 duo of Josh Reagan and Adrian Remigio won 8-5 while Joseph Catalina and Juan Cerros won the No. 2 match 8-4.
SOFTBALL
Marauders split doubleheader with Vikings
Monach High School’s Jessenia Castillo and Kiyah Ramirez were bad news for opposing pitchers in the second game of Saturday’s non-league doubleheader in Porterville. The Marauders came back to win the second game 16-11 after losing the first 6-5.
In the final game, Castillo went 3-for-3 with three home runs, four RBIS, five runs scored and a walk. Ramirez went 4-for-5 with four RBIS, a double and a walk. Chloe Rivas was 3-for-4 with five RBIS and three runs scored.
Castillo also got the win on the mound after going seven innings with seven strikeouts. She allowed nine earned runs
on 13 hits and five walks while Rivas recorded the save.
“An amazing show for the kid that just signed to [University of Detroit Mercy],” MHS head coach Dave Koontz said. “We were disappointed after the first game but the second game proved to me they do have the stuff that champions are made of. They came back from a disappointing loss. I was much happier the second game obviously.”
Koontz said the team played “poor” in the first game and had seven errors with five of Kingsburg’s six runs being unearned. However he added that Rivas had “another one of her monster games” after going 2-for-3 with two doubles, three RBIS, all while pitching “her guts out”. Ramirez, Castillo and Kailyn Castle all went 2-for-4 with Ramirez and Castillo each getting a double while Castillo had two.
“Our biggest problem was we left so many players on base, we just could not get a clutch hit,” Koontz said.