Report on League Finals: It's A Family Affair
One of the great funk/rock bands of the 60's and 70's was Sly and the Family Stone, and one of their later songs was "It's A Family Affair", a song that should have been playing over the loudspeakers at the end of League Finals as the brother and sister combo of Chris and Erin Baird both finished as League runner-ups in the 3200M. More importantly, they ran qualifying times (9:31 and 11:17) for CIF Prelims next week. Erin ran her usual smart race, losing only to last year's state finalist, Anna Sperry. Chris was involved in maybe the most exciting finish of the day, with Michael Cybulski (last year's State champion) barely holding on for the victory over Chris by a mere .07 seconds, but Chris outleaning Alex Routh of Royal by the same .07 margin. Coach Spencer said he wished his sprinters leaned into the tape as well as Chris had. It's on to CIF Prelims next week at Moorpark High School, with a trip to CIF Finals at Cerritos College at stake. Congratulations also to Derek Johnson (League Champion in both the Shot Put and Discus), Kevin Graf (Shot Put), Amy Moffat (Pole Vault), and Rebecca Wong (400M) who also are progressing on to CIF Prelims.
In addition to these CIF qualifiers, there were many other fine performances on Friday. Matt Schroeder overcame the 7am phone call I made to him that morning (to inform him that he'd been added to the 1600M finals), to post Personal Records in both the 1600M (4:49.96) and the 3200M (10:36.85), a gutsy and great way to end his high school career. Matt's goal was to break 4:50, so we were forced to wait more than an hour for the official results in order to confirm he had in fact achieved his goal. I found out first, and went over and asked him if he really wanted to know the official time. His face tensed up and I said: 4:50 ....... minus .04. He threw his arms in the air as though he'd won the Olympic gold medal! His second goal was to get Anna Sperry's (Simi Valley) phone number, but I hear she's got far better sense than that.
Other PRs included sophomore Katie Klezek's 5:26.34 in the 1600M, freshmen Bryan Quintanilla, Max Byer, Aaron "Paisano" Argiso, and Richard Avery in the 3200M (11:14, 11:51, 11:57 and 12:27, respectively), and Evan Fehler's 11:38 in the 3200M.
Captain Michelle Kislak also said goodbye to her high school career with her efforts in the 1600M and 3200M varsity races. It's been a tremendous season for Michelle, who broke her PR several times during the season, exceeding all expectations with her 5:27 1600M, a 21-second improvement over her previous seasons. She is now off to the People's Republic of California (aka UC Berkeley), but promises Richard Avery (her future second husband) she will stay in close contact.
Stay tuned for CIF updates and most importantly, KEEP ON RUNNING!
