Sarah Player and Danielle Eckert got in a bit of pre-season competition at the Patrick Henry All-Comers meet on March 2nd (see link at top). Player won the 100 hurdles, 300 hurdles, high jump and placed 2nd in the 200. Eckert won the pole vault.

On March 10th at the all-girls Tiger Relays, held at Patrick Henry, Sarah r won the 100 hurdles in 17:04 , Sallie Privett placed 2^nd in the Invitational 3200 meter run in 11:55 , and Adrianna Davies placed 5^th in the open 3200 in 13:04 . As the season progresses into dual meet competition, beginning on March 28^th when the Islanders host Clairemont on our new track, these three will figure prominently in the scoring. Player holds or co-holds 3 school records (100 and 300 meter hurdles, and 200 meter dash), while freshmen Privett and Davies were the Islanders 1-2 punch on last season’s cross country league champion team.  Another athlete who will score a lot of Islander points is 3-time league pole vault champion  (and school record holder in that event) Danielle Eckert, not only in the pole vault but also in the triple jump, long jump and sprints. Juniors Neisha Scales and Christian Grant, along with Player and Eckert make-up a formidable veteran sprint squad. Moving up from our middle school track program are Danielle Gillberg, who dominated the middle school hurdles, sprinter/hurdlers Stefanie Pietkiewicz and Madison Rutherford, and Brianna Giorgione who is showing promise in the pole vault and high jump. Other athletes back from last year’s team are Kelsey Fitzgerald, Brigid Twomey, Rebecca Waterman, along with several promising newcomers who I’ll report on as they find their events.

The event specifics are less clear for the boys’ team at this time as we have many new athletes that we’re still evaluating. What is clear, on the other hand, is Ben Enowitz and David Grimes from the Islanders league championship team will win most of the distance match-ups. Michael Davies would be in this category as well but he recently suffered a collapsed lung. He should be back later in the season and be as good as new for Cross Country. On the other end of the running scale, junior tailback Kyle Brown will be a force to reckon with in the 100, 200, long jump and triple jump. He’s new to the Islander track program as he transferred to Coronado from Lemoore high in the Central section. Rather than guess about the rest, I’ll save this evaluation until after we have our first dual meet.

This season’s coaches include head coach George Green (pole vault, distance, long jump, triple jump, hurdles) along with veteran coaches Kerry Elders (high jump, hurdles, triple jump, long jump), Doug Stone (sprints, relays, long jump), and Mel Bechtel (throws). New this year is 4-year varsity runner at CAL, Oliver Brown, who is coaching sprints, hurdles, relays, and long jump.