Monache track wins Reedley Invite
The Monache boys and girls track teams won both divisions on Friday afternoon during the 75th Reedley Track and Field Invitational. Eleven teams competed during a slightly windy day that produced many personal records for the Marauders.
Stockdale and Bakersfield High school pushed the Marauders throughout the day and the meet was decided for the boys when they won the 4x400 with a personal record of 3 minutes and 31.77 seconds. Demetrius Ingram started in the blocks with a great leg of 53 seconds and Jaden Uphoff, Julian Andrade and Isaiah Sotelo held the lead with impressive runs of their own.
It was Ivan Mendez that got the team closer in the second to the last race of the night with an impressive win over Stockdale’s Marcus Mota and Reedley’s Christian Gomez in a time of 9:37.
These same runners started the meet with a blazing fast mile that produced three of the top four fastest times in the Central Section. Mendez outkicked the field with 100 meters to go against a surging Mota.
“Ivan deserves this success. He has worked very hard to put himself in a position to compete with Marcus and Christian. They are an elite group of runners that have absolute respect for each other. All those guys killed that mile. It was extremely fast.” said Monache Coach Seth Ishida.
In fact, it was fast enough to break the former Monache school record of 4:21 set by David Mendez.
Monache distance had a great day with Imelda Suarez running a winning 3,200 in 11:32 and Marilou Ruiz winning the 800 with a 2:20.
Uphoff ran his first sub 2 minute 800 meters and could only be beaten by the best athlete in the meet Highland’s Moises Medrano running a 1:57.09 to Uphoff’s 1:59.34.
Monache jumpers scored well with two seconds and two fourths from Joey Vath and Montrese Fields in the long and triple jumps.
The boys and girls hurdlers were equally impressive with a sec-
ond, fourth and fifth in the two boys hurdle races led by Chris Martinez and Izaiah Pasqua.
For the Lady Marauders, Laila Alghonaym earned a first in the 300-meter hurdles and a second in the 100-meter high hurdles. Francine Vasquez and Riley Beeman followed with third and fourth in the 100 hurdles and Vasquez in second for the 300 hurdles.
“It was another team effort on both sides. It is incredible to win the County and come up to Reedley and win our second invitational against these quality teams,” Ishida said. PHS duo wins EYL doubles
Porterville High School’s unseeded team of Joseph Catalina and Juan Cerros won the East Yosemite League boys tennis doubles championship on Saturday.
They beat the thirdseeded Monache team Friday in the quarterfinals 6-0, 6-3.
On Saturday, they beat the second-seeded Tulare Western team in the semifinals 6-0, 6-4.
In the finals, they beat fourth-seed Delano 1-6, 6-1, 6-1.
Porterville’s Josh Reagan and Adrian Remigi, who seeded first in doubles, lost in the semifinals 6-3, 6-4 to Delano. In the consolation match for third place, they lost 8-6 to Tulare Western and placed fourth.
Both PHS doubles teams qualifed for area May 11-12 in Reedley.
Monache’s doubles teams of Jacob Buckley and Josue Orozco and Johnny Hu and Nick Nuno finished fifth and sixth respectively at the EYL tournament and also advance to area.