This year’s track and field team was very successful. A handful of people made it to IVL’s and some even competed and placed in CIF. This couldn’t have been done without teamwork and the amazing season they had. A lot of PRs were set and records were broken. The women’s team took 2nd place overall within the small schools in the Janice Kelly Southland Invitationals while the guys took 4th. The 2023 team was simply remarkable. Head coach, Timmothy Jorgensen described the team as advanced and new. “We had to rebuild a lot of the events because there were a lot of new people joining the team, compared to being advanced in some of the events due to the returning people. We had a whole range from competitive to new beginnings.” The coach said the success of the team was surprising. This is due to the new people and their performance at events. “We had a lot of brand new people however I believe the girl’s team came the farthest compared to where they started (Most improved). The boy’s team had a lot of high caliber athletes returning and they continued their success.”

IVLs were good to the track and field team. The final results stand as such; Matthew Robertson took 2nd place for the guys 100 meters dash and 3rd in the 200 meters. Tyty Starr took 7th place for the women’s 100 meters and 8th in the 200 meters. Landyn Munyon took 6th place in the men’s 400m race. Both Mark Barth and Adeline Egan took 16th place in the 1600m with Adeline also taking 7th place in the 3200 meters. Samantha Lopez took 8th place in the 300m hurdles. Our men’s 4x100m team took 3rd place while the women’s team took 7th. Both of our 4x400m teams took 6th place. Velma Miles took 8th place in the Shot Put competition. Addison Bayles took 2nd place in High Jump while Gabriel Dagnino took 3rd, Gabriel also took 3rd place in Long Jump and 4th in Triple Jump. “We had almost twice the amount of people at finals than last year. We had a lot of good performances which ended up qualifying a lot of those individuals for CIF. “ This is what Coach Jorgensen had to say about IVLs. 

Making CIF in Track and Field is a great accomplishment. This team worked really hard in order to make the Finals and have a good performance. Matthew Robertson competed in both the 100-meter dash and the 200m placing 1st in his Division for both events, and the men’s 4x100m team, Landon Salazar, Gabriel Dagnino, Xavier Bejarano, and Matthew Robertson took 3rd place. “We had 21 individuals qualifying for prelims compared to 14 last year. Had we been able to get about half of those individuals to qualify to finals we would have been in the hunt for a CIF trophy.” Matthew Robertson went on to qualify for the State Championship prelims for both the 100 and the 200 meters races. He placed 24th in the 100 meters dash and 18th in the 200 meters race. “Matthew did awesome at state,” said Coach Jorgensen. Placing high in the state is very difficult due to everyone being good at their events and it being extremely competitive. “His 200 time was .200 of a second away from his pr. For his 100 time, we were a little disappointed because there were two false starts; It’s hard to be focused after a false start now make that two. His final time was a little slower than we expected but still a good time.” As for the actual meet, head coach Jorgensen described it as huge and exciting. “The state meet is huge and there are a lot of things going on, it’s the best athletes from all over the state, there are college recruiters all over the place, it’s really hard to not get caught up in all of the excitement.”