St. Mary’s edges O’Dowd for title
Kali Hatcher thought she had cost her team the title. The springy St. Mary’s-Berkeley junior was off her mark on the long jump. She couldn’t find a rhythm. She fouled once. She started a foot behind the board another time.
Fatigue could have been a factor after she had won the 300-meter hurdles in 44.44 seconds and won the triple jump the previous day at an impressive 41 feet.
But in her final event, Hatcher’s mark of 18-5¾ was well behind Acalanes-Lafayette senior Windy Margerum’s winning 19-1¾, a personal best.
“I thought that was it,” Hatcher said. “I thought Bishop O’Dowd had won.”
But when the final tallies came out at Edwards Stadium on the Cal campus, St. Mary’s had emerged with 57 points to win its third North Coast Section Meet of Champions in four years. The Panthers edged defending champion Bishop O’Dowd, which had 50 points.
When they found out, Hatcher and a group of St. Mary’s teammates let out a shriek.
“I’m happy with how I performed, but way happier for my team,” Hatcher said.
It was an exciting day overall on a cool, breezy day, which featured just one meet record, that from California-San Ramon junior Alyssa Brewer in the 800 (2:08.37). The defending state champion in the event broke her own meet record of 2:08.47, set last year. It was off her personal record of 2:06.86 set in last year’s state meet and her best time this year of 2:07.59.
Brewer took a big lead from the start and ran basically by herself.
The top three placers in each event qualified for this week’s state finals in Fresno.
Though Bishop O’Dowd fell just short, junior Tierra Robinson-Jones was sensational, anchoring two relay victories, winning the 200 (24.27) and placing second to Newark Memorial’s Alexis Surrell (54.10) in the 400 (54.35).
Robinson admitted her narrow loss to Surrell motivated her the rest of the meet. She contributed to 38 of O’Dowd’s 50 points.
“I was beyond disappointed,” Robinson-Jones said of her 400 defeat. “I just didn’t run my race. I had to get over it though. And I did.”
Surrell was ecstatic after breaking her personal best of 54.64. She had defeated Robinson-Jones in just one previous race. The two have been racing since the youth level. RobinsonJones “really pushes me,” Surrell said. “It feels amazing to win here. Now my goal is to make state finals.”
The meet’s headliner, St. Joseph-Alameda senior Cooper Teare, the national leader in the 3,200, fought off a broken pinkie toe to his left foot to win in 9:01.48 over 1,600 winner Liam Anderson, a sophomore from Redwood-Larkspur.
MaxPreps senior writer Mitch Stephens covers high school sports for The Chronicle.