Athletes taper workouts heading into state

A final chapter for three Lodiarea runners begins today in the Fresno area.

Tokay’s Andres Sandoval joins Liberty Ranch’s Collin Ullrich and St. Mary’s Joe Fontes at the 99th annual CIF State Track and Field Championships. The two-day event is taking place at Veterans Memorial Stadium at Buchanan High of Clovis. Sandoval graduated from Tokay on Thursday night, and Ullrich is a junior who is the first Liberty Ranch track and field member to compete at the state meet since the school opened its doors at the start of the 2009-10 school year.

At the Sac-Joaquin Section Masters Track and Field finals a week ago today, Sandoval took third place in the finals of the boys’ 1,600-meter race at 4 minutes, 14.54 seconds. That is a new Tokay High record, and beats out Sandoval’s father, Jose, of his high school best in the event at 4:16. Ullrich also took third in the boys’ 3,200-meter at 9:18.33. Fontes, a Lodi resident, raced to a second place finish in the boys’ 100-meter at the Masters at 10.94 seconds.

According to the CIF’s Website, Sandoval is expected to run in the first of two heats of the 1,600 at approximately 5:45 p.m. Ullrich’s race is scheduled for Saturday at 8:55 p.m. Today, Fontes will be in one of four heats, which is slated to start at 7:23 p.m.

This is the first time that Sandoval has competed at the CIF State Track and Field Champi-

onships, but it is his state championship meet of the school year. Last November, he competed at the CIF State Cross-Country Championships at Fresno’s Woodward Park, where he placed 146th at 16:02.8.

For the last two weeks, the training for both the Masters’ and state meet has gone three-quarters of a regular season workout, Sandoval said.

“The workouts have been one of the easiest I’ve ever had,” said Sandoval, who will be attending Holy Names University in Oakland this fall and running for the men’s cross-country and track and field teams. “But we want to keep things fresh. On Friday, I hope I can peak even more.”

Ullrich dropped his time in the 3,200 quite a bit at the Masters to the section’s Division IV meet at California State University, Stanislaus two weeks ago. On his way to winning the race, Ullrich finished at 9:41.60.

Fontes, only in his second year of track and field, has a personal best of 10.66. At the Masters meet last week, the Lodi resident won his heat at 10.84 before placing second in the finals to advance to state.