Davina Pham (’16) starts the Shuttle Hurdle Relay Race. Photo by James Nguyen.By Heather Carr, staff writer
The Fountain Valley Track team began a strong season at Sunset League Relays last Friday, where they competed against each team from the League except Edison High School.
Although there were no official scores between schools since it was a practice meet, the Barons showed promise for the upcoming season in all events.
On the distance side, varsity boys dominated the 4×800 m by over fifteen seconds and the 4×1600 by nearly a minute. The girls scored third in their race after a lot of off-season training.
“Varsity 4×800 looked really good,” said girls distance coach Crystal Reed. “After weeks of off-season training and hard work, the girls are starting to look like they have some life in them. The times are dropping.”
The long jump teams leaped ahead of their competitors as well, with Dakarai Barnett (’16) winning the boys varsity level by nearly a foot at a distance of 21-05.00 (21 feet and five inches). On the girls side, Julienne Chiang (’16) and Nathalie Huynh (’15) scored a closed second and third behind Los Alamitos with distances of 16-09.75 and 15-09.75.
“It was a perfect day to jump, no wind,” said Alvin Nguyen (’15), who placed fourth in the boys varsity long jump with a distance of 19-00.50. “It was the perfect day to start a new season.”
Top performances also included the varsity girls 4×100 shuttle hurdle relay who achieved first place with a team time of 1:08.64.
“It was a good opening,” said Davina Pham (’16), who was one of the team’s legs. “I think overall our team did good, we still ended up getting first even though we had a few mistakes. Season’s looking good this year.”
The 4×400 girls varsity team ran a 3:59.18, which broke the school record for that event. It beat second place by over ten seconds and set a PR (personal record) for each girl on the team with this specific distance.
