By Heather Carr
After achieving dozens of PRs this season along with sweeping on all levels at almost every dual meet, the Fountain Valley track team chose to end its season with the quality effort they’ve been showing all year at the Sunset League Finals last Thursday at Huntington Beach High School. The girls varsity team received second place in league, boys varsity finished first, the girls and boys JV teams both placed first, the frosh soph girls received first place, and the frosh soph boys finished second. Although a few athletes were disappointed by their results, many made it to the CIF prelims, and are satisfied with their overall season.
One of the top performances of the day came from the distance side, with Natalie Grohman (’15) running a PR of 2:15.56 in the varsity girls 800 meters, the fifth fastest time in school history for that event, and also qualified for CIF Pre-lims by placing eighth overall in CIF.
“The 800m did go out really fast, I just stayed in the back and reeled them in,” recalled Grohman. “In the last 100m I knew I had to make a decision whether to go or to stay. I decided to go and pushed myself beyond my limits. I wanted this since the beginning of [the] season and ended up with second place and a 2:15.56, ranking eighth in CIF.”
The sprinters also stepped up the intensity, with Dakarai Barnett (’16) placing second in the boys varsity 100m dash by running 11.19 seconds to qualify for CIF, Dylan Huynh (’14) ran a 15.00 in the boys varsity 110m hurdles and received third place, and also qualified for CIF, and many others were satisfied with their results.
“I got second overall [in the boys frosh soph 400m] and it was really exhilarating to finish a great season with a PR,” reported Meritt Dickerson (’16), who ran in the boys frosh soph 400m and the 4x100m relay. “We’ve done better since the beginning of the year and I can’t say I’ve had a bad year or a bad experience with any of the team, and if I can be honest, I’m sure we can do even better.”
The pole vaulting team expressed mixed reactions for its performances.
“I think the season went really well this year, we finished strong. I know a lot of people wished they finished stronger, but overall, I think we did really really well,” said Megan Pollock (’16), who is on the frosh soph team, but did not participate at Finals. “I think next year’s going to be really good because I know we got a lot of good freshmen coming up to their sophomore year, though we’re going to be missing out on a lot of seniors.”
On May 17th, those who scored in the top three for a varsity race or have achieved the qualifying standards will move on to the CIF Prelims at Trabuco Hills High School. There they will face competition from across southern California, then they hope to move on to Finals the next week, and eventually to the state meet.
