2009 Central League Track Prelims and Finals
May 12 - 15
Islander Track Home Page

Last week the Central League track prelims and City Finals were held at Hoover and Cathedral Catholic respectively with the prelims on Tuesday and Finals on Friday. This is not a team championship as that was determined by w/l records for the season. The primary purpose of the championships is to advance athletes to the CIF prelims this Saturday at Mt. Carmel , the secondary purpose is to determine individual champions in all events, and the tertiary purpose is to give athletes who will not advance one more chance to compete. The top two finishers in each event, athletes whose mark meets a CIF automatic qualification standard, and athletes whose mark at finals was among the top 18 finishers in the division (in our case division-2) advance to the CIF prelims. At the end of the day (specifically Friday at around 8pm) the Islander track squad advanced 11 athletes to the CIF prelims and came away with 4 individual championships; two each by Sallie Privett and Cassie Callahan.

Tuesday's action started with the girls' 3200 meter finals in which Sallie Privett and Adie Davies posted impressive 1-2 finishes with times of 11:37.8 and 11:51.8. Clairemont's Michelle Read was 3rd in 12:10.5. Both Privett and Davies met all three conditions to advance but Privett will scratch the 3200 at CIF to concentrate on the 1600 and 800 meter runs. In the 1600 meter run held as a final on Friday Privett, Annie Lovering, and Davies went 1-2-3 as a group in rather impressive style way out in front of the pack with Privett posting a time of 5:16.30, Lovering 5:17.08 and Davies 5:18.88. All three advance to the CIF prelims because Davies' time was under the qualification standard of 5:24.19.  In the girls' 800 meters on Tuesday we qualified 5 runners for the finals; Privett, Davies, Nicole Davies (Adie's freshman sister), Katie Centeno and Natalie Pettee. At the finals there was really no way to compete with Lincoln 's great 800 meter runner, Elizabeth Apgar, as she was concentrating on the 800 only. Centeno ran a great race to finish 2nd with a time of 2:24.29, Privett, having recently run the 1600 was content to advance via the qualifying standard and placed 3rd in 2:24.60, Adie Davies running basically to support her sister was 5th in 2:27.8, Nicole Davies placed 6th in 2:28.51, and Pettee was 9th in 2:35.20. In the boys' 800 David Grimes and Clairemont's Dahir Mohamed posted the best times of the day in the prelims with a dead-heat finish in 2:02.1. Grimes was 3rd in Friday's finals in about the same time and advanced to the CIF prelims by place in our division. The boys' 1600 meters was run with a "B" heat (over 5 minutes PR) on Tuesday and a qualification heat (Under 5 minutes PR) on Friday. We didn't run anyone in the "A" heat because Ayran Shay couldn't make the Friday heat so he ran on Tuesday for a time. He won easily in 4:50.8. Had he run on Friday that time would have placed him 8th overall.

In the 300 hurdles, we qualified Cassie Callahan, Danielle Swanson, Maddie Danielson and Briana Girogione on Tuesday for Friday's finals with Danielson tying Lincoln 's Sophia Pertiller for the best time of the day in 49.17.  At the finals Danielson had a bad trip (no pun intended) to place 3rd to Callahan and Pertiller. It appeared, approaching the last hurdle, that Pertiller would edge out Callahan but Pertiller had trouble clearing the barrier and Callahan sprinted past for the win with a time of 49.16. Giorgione, running the race for only the 2nd time, was 8th . Swanson scratched because her shins were bothering her after qualifying in the 100 hurdles with a 2nd place finish in 18.15 earlier in the day. In that race (the 100 hurdles) Olivia Lilligraven placed 3rd but didn't advance. Callahan also won the triple jump with a leap of 31 feet and placed 2nd in the long jump with 14 feet 11 inches. Yvonne Wood placed 7th in triple jump with 28-3.5 and 8th in the long jump with 13-4. Bridgid Twomey had qualified for both the long and triple jumps on Tuesday but couldn't make the finals because of a prior commitment. Giorgione, although not moving on in the hurdles, placed 2nd in both the high jump and pole vault to advance in both of those events. Also advancing in the pole vault was Will Bartch who placed 2nd with a vault of 12 feet on Friday.

In the girls' 400 Sadie Gimber was sick all week but was able to run in the finals because prelims weren't needed (there were only 9 entries). Still, not feeling 100%, she placed 2nd to Hoover 's San Diego Section leader, Vanessa Houston, with a PR of 59.56 to advance as the 2nd overall Division-2 seed in the county (Houston's in D-1).

Michael Gasparro advanced to Friday's finals in two events clocking 53.83 in the 400 and 24.46 in the 200. On Friday he was 3rd in the 400 with 54.12 and 6th in the 200 in 24.65.

In the boys' 100 finals on Friday Charles Westbrook placed 4th in 11.85 followed by Andrew Smith in 7th. Smith also ran the 200 on Friday placing a step in front of Gasparro in 5th place with a time of 23.87.

Lauren Bower placed 4th in both the 100 and 200 prelims on Tuesday but just missed advancing to Friday's finals.

We had 3 entries in the boys' 300 meter hurdles but none made it to Friday's finals. Julian Martinez, Nate Ferraco, and Chris Pittner ran game races but this was their first year running the event and just need a little more practice.

In the boys’ shot put prelims on Friday Scott Phillip placed 7^th with a throw of 37 feet 11 inches but elected to not throw in Friday’s finals.