Clairemont Dual Meet 29 April 2004
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We had originally slated Clairemont as a dual meet the girls should win. However, Jamie Klages, our star high jumper and hurdler sustained a soccer injury over the weekend making her unavailable and freshman Sara Player, Jamie’s understudy, pulled a hip flexor in training on Tuesday that took her out of the meet as well. Because Jamie and Sara also compete in the horizontal jumps, sprints and relays their absence represented at least a 30 point deficit. On the line were a 4 year winning streak and a chance to win the league championship for the 3rd year in a row. Before the meet Ashley Houston volunteered to run the 100 meter hurdles because it’s an event she did in middle school. Clairemont entered only one hurdler so it looked like an easy 3 points. To everyone’s surprise she won the event thus “earning” a spot in the 300 meter hurdles along with our pole vaulter, Danielle Eckert. Houston matched their top hurdler for the first 100 meters but crashed into a hurdle on the curve and went down. She got up dusty and bloody but finished the race in 2nd with Eckert taking 3rd. It was Katherine Wingert’s job to neutralize Harbor League cross country champion, Judy Jimenez, in the 1600 and 3200 meter runs. In the 1600 Wingert ran an effortless time of 5:26.5 to win easily with Caitlin Alley third in 5:48.7. The 3200 was more of a contest but she won going away with a PR of 11:59 to Jimenez’s 12:08, again with Alley in 3rd. It was Beth Wittry’s job to take on their unbeaten freshman 800 meter runner. Because Beth is more of a 400 meter sprinter than a mid-distance runner she was instructed to turn the race into a 200 meter sprint by hanging back until the last 200 then using her speed to kick in. The tactic worked perfectly, the pace was slow for the first 600 meters because there seemed to be no threat. Then it was too late as Wittry kicked in to win in 2:28.6. Once again Alley took the 3rd place point. Because Clairemont is weak in the sprints we ran Nila Heurtelou back-to-back in the 400 and 100 meter dashes as well as the 200 later in the meet with instructions to run just fast enough to win. Her winning times of 64.3, 13.5 and 29.3 were enough to gather 15 points. Ashlee Houston and Beth Wittry added 6 more by placing 2nd in the 100 and 400 respectively. Houston also placed 3rd in the long jump. Megan Mushovic placed 2nd in both the high jump and long jump as well as 3rd in the discus throw. Add 3 points for Alexis Castro’s 2nd place shot finish and we had 59 of the 64 points needed to win with only the triple jump and 4x400 relay left to contend. Since there are no points for 2nd in relays we had to win one of these remaining events. After her first attempt in the triple jump it was clear that the 800 and 200 had taken too much out of Wittry’s legs to beat Clairemont’s Erika Julian. We had to win the final relay to win the meet. They had their best team on the line and we were nearly out of runners. Eckert was the freshest of those left standing so she joined our three workhorses Wittry, Heurtelou and Wingert to win the relay in 4:26.5, and the meet by a score of 67 to 59.

Clairemont won the boys meet by a score of 68-49 in spite of triple wins by Jake Ruzevick in the 1600, 800 and 3200 meter runs and Reid McLean in the 100, 300 hurdles and long jump. Adam Munns won the high jump and David Zodrow the discus throw. Zodrow also placed 2nd in the shot put. Mike Mitchell placed 3rd in both the 400 and 200 meter dashes and Alton Smith placed 2nd in the 100 high hurdles and 3rd in the 300 hurdles.