The respective sides of the San Benito boys and girls’ track
teams experienced the opposite ends of the emotional spectrum at
the Tri-County Athletic League Finals on Friday night.
GILROY
Head coach Bob Rawles kept it short. He only had one comment to make, in fact.
Standing on the infield at the Garcia-Elder Sports Complex Friday night in Gilroy, moments after the Tri-County Athletic League Finals had ended, the first-year coach for the San Benito High girls’ track and field team summed up the entire season, he said, by simply hugging Vanessa Estrada.
The San Benito sophomore was unfairly placing the weight of the team’s loss to Notre Dame on her shoulders following Friday’s year-end meet. Although she had scored the majority of her team’s points — she was a two-event TCAL champ in the 800- and 1,600-meter races — Estrada was only focusing on the meet’s final event, the 1,600-meter relay, and those last 20 to 40 meters of her anchor leg.
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“I feel like my mind was telling me to go, but my body wasn’t moving,” Estrada said afterwards.
While the Baler boys had clinched the TCAL title early on and with several events still to go, the San Benito girls led by one point entering the 4×400 relay and needed to win the event, which carried a winner-take-all plotline between Notre Dame, San Benito and even Salinas.
But in the end, Friday’s league championships came down to roughly 1.5 seconds, or 20 meters, or even one point, as the Spirits (4:07.31) fended off the Balers (4:08.97) in painstaking fashion to win their first title in 17 years, 120-119.
“I’m just disappointed in myself,” said Estrada, who ran the 4×400 relay with Jessica Cook, Jessi Pfeifer and Maura Forbush, but was unable to close the narrow gap on Notre Dame in the very end.
“I still want to try and come in first in all my events,” she added. “I want to win as much as I can for my team. I see my team trying so hard, each and every one of them, and I want to do my best, too.”
It may have been a sour ending for Estrada, but it was an otherwise sweet day for the sophomore. The distance runner clocked first-place finishes in the 800 (2:21.00) and 1,600 (5:10.06), while also finishing second in the 3,200 (11:30.17).
She will advance to the Central Coast Section Semifinals in each event, too, including the 4×400 relay.
“She scored like 30 points for us,” Rawles said in astonishment.
San Benito wasn’t necessarily expected to be that close to a league championship, either. But six individual titles, including Estrada’s pair, helped vault San Benito to the top.
Three-event competitor Savanna Wilson found the top of the podium in the long jump when she took first place with a leap of 17-0, while Krystal Alnas earned top honors in the discus with a throw of 122-01. With the top three finalists in each event advancing to the CCS Semifinals, Alnas will also compete next week in the shot put after she finished third Friday with a mark of 35-08.
Meanwhile, Melissa Castro took first in the high jump at 5-0, while Jessi Pfeifer did the same in the 400 with a time of 60.32 seconds. The 4×100 relay team will also make an appearance at the CCS Semifinals, after it recorded a third-place finish of 51.60 seconds, while Maura Forbush will compete in two events — the 800 and 1,600 meters — after she recorded third-place times of 2:23.78 and 5:21.00 on Friday night, respectively.
For a brief moment on Friday, though, Forbush thought she had advanced to CCS in only one event. She thought she had finished in fourth place in the 1,600 meters to Gilroy’s Athena Alarcon, placing her just outside of a CCS bid.
But it was Alarcon who finished fourth — by two one-hundredths of a second.
“She leaned forward and I thought she beat me,” said Forbush, who was so convinced she finished fourth that she departed the track without hearing her standing. She was walking over to cheer on a teammate when Alarcon came to congratulate her.
“I was pretty sure I didn’t make it,” she said. “It was crazy.”
As was the end of the night.
“The girls race was so exciting, but it was a heartbreaker,” San Benito boys coach Iran White said afterward.
The same could not be said for the Baler boys, however. Although their dual meet with Salinas earlier this season came down to the final event — just like the girls’ had on Friday night — the Balers had managed to instead wrap up the TCAL title in uneventful fashion on Friday following a strong showing in the 200 meters.
In other words, what transpired in the 4×400 relay, and even the 3,200 meters, didn’t matter as far as the team scores were concerned. San Benito dominated the competition on Friday en route to a 147-114 victory over runner-up Gilroy.
Salinas was third with 103 points.
“I’m real proud of the job this team has done — the athletes and the coaches,” White said.
While last year’s storyline focused on what could have been — a shorthanded San Benito team fell all of three points short of two-time champ Salinas — Friday’s year-end meet highlighted a team meeting their expectations.
After all, the Balers were supposed to win Friday.
“It was great,” said Jason Roascio, who ran a seemingly pressure-free anchor leg in the 4×400 relay on Friday. “I still try to run as if the pressure is on, though. When there is no pressure, you get cocky.”
Roascio and the 4×400 relay of David Kret, Taylor Lothman and Scott Medina didn’t take the situation for granted. They still won their 1,600-meter relay in 3:21.98, defeating Salinas (3:27.28) by roughly six seconds.
Considering there wasn’t much of a push, White was pleased with the effort.
“They’re ready,” he said. “They just need to stay healthy.”
Which was the problem last season.
Roascio said he’s suffering a minor case of compartment syndrome, but the discomfort didn’t appear to hinder the senior sprinter much on Friday night.
He won the 400 in 49.54 seconds, was a member of the 4×100 relay team, which took second place in a school-record time of 43.09 seconds, and led the meet-altering 200 meters when he finished first in 22.30 seconds.
Roascio edged Gilroy’s Julius Travis by eight one-hundredths of a second in that race.
“He beat me up at the start. He was gone,” Roascio said. “I was still a little timid with my injury. But I kicked it in.
“When I leaned forward (at the finish line), I could see his hair. It was very close.”
Teammate Michael Bocksnick took third in the event at 23.09, while David Kret was sixth in 23.76 — a 17-point pickup for the Balers.
Roascio’s two titles were just a pair of eight first-place finishes for San Benito Friday, as David Kret (800, 1:58.08), Enrique Ramos (shot put, 50-05) and two-event champion Scott Medina (300 hurdles, 38.33; high jump, 6-06) each stood atop their respective podiums.
Medina’s performance in the high jump was dominant, too. As one of those athletes who sat out last year’s postseason with a foot injury, he didn’t waste any time putting his mark on the TCAL Finals Friday.
He set a new meet record, in fact, with his 6-06 leap in the high jump.
“I’m usually at 5-10 in practice. But I’m just working on form, not the height,” said Medina, who broke the previous record of 6-04, set by Hollister’s Danny Brooks in 2003. “You’ve got to get the fundamentals down first.”
It is the 11th record set by Medina this season, in either the high jump, 300-meter hurdles or as a member of the 4×100 or 4×400 relay teams.
Other top-three performances by the Balers Friday included Taylor Lothman (400, 51.42, 3rd), Jose Castillo (800, 1:59.29, 3rd), Alex Garratt (high jump, 5-10 ½, 3rd) and Emmett King (shot put, 47-06, 3rd; discus, 145-10, 2nd).
Each will now compete in Saturday’s CCS Semifinals, scheduled again for the Garcia-Elder Sports Complex in Gilroy.
Senior Jayjoel Fernandez will also be in attendance, after he clocked a personal-best time of 15.74 seconds in the 110-meter hurdles, and earned the TCAL title by all of one one-hundredth of a second.
“I was hoping for 14, but my start needs a bit of work,” Fernandez said. “I’ll try to work on that the week before CCS.”
“But four years ago, when I first made this team,” Fernandez later added, “I never dreamed I’d get to where I’m at.”
To see complete results from Friday’s Tri-County Athletic League Finals, go here.
