Norwalk – It is their determination and drive that enable athletes such as Amanda Boyd, Todd Merrigan and Josh Schroder to compete with the best of the best. And it is those same qualities that force those ‘Balers to be hard on themselves when they don’t turn out their best performances.
At the CIF State Track and Field Championships at Cerritos College Friday, Boyd, Merrigan and Schroder took their rightful places alongside California’s elite track and field athletes. While each of the San Benito athletes entered the preliminaries with expectations of bettering their top marks, they saw their seasons end one step shy of qualifying for today’s finals.
Boyd, who advanced to the state championships for the second straight year, competed in the 1600-meter race a year after she took on the 3200 field. The San Benito senior entered the race as the 20th seed and improved on that mark to finish 17th. Unfortunately for the Lady ‘Baler, only the top nine finishers advanced to the finals.
After listing a sub-5:00 time as her goal heading in, Boyd finished in 5:04.79.
“I was bummed because it wasn’t what I wanted,” Boyd related, “But oh well. There’s nothing I can do about it now.”
The senior took off with the pack and maintained a solid pace for the first two laps, but found herself struggling to get position in the inside lane.
“It was crowded and a lot of the time I was in Lane 2,” Boyd said. “I was getting boxed in. I didn’t have an open lane like I needed. I was trying to get up there, but it was crowded and pushy.”
San Benito distance coach Jess Morales said Boyd did well to stay with the leaders under the circumstances.
“She was in the mix,” Morales said. “The third lap, I think she started feeling it. They kind of took off on her and, in the fourth lap, they really picked up the pace.”
Whereas Boyd’s qualifying time of 5:01.22 would have challenged for a state-finals berth in recent seasons, the 1600 was a much faster race this year.
“Put it this way,” Morales said. “It’s a fast race. Four minutes, fifty-seven seconds didn’t get you in. … It was one of the fastest fields in track and field in high school.”
The two San Benito pole vaulters, Merrigan and Schroder, also found the going a bit tougher at Cerritos College. After both recorded PR’s over the last two weeks, the ‘Balers both cleared their opening height of 14-4, but failed to scale a higher bar on a windy evening.
Merrigan and Schroder both finished 11th. A ninth-place finish was needed to advance to today’s finals.
After a difficult warm-up session which included head winds and tail winds at different intervals, Schroder and Merrigan didn’t know what to expect once they took the runway for the preliminaries.
“It threw everyone off,” Schroder said. “There was just too much wind.”
Though only a slight tail wind factored into the actual competition, the elements had already taken effect.
Schroder, who cleared 14-11 to take third at last week’s Central Coast Section finals and set a new PR, vaulted 14-4 on his first attempt Friday.
“I tapped the bar,” related the junior, who aggravated an earlier ankle injury in the warm-ups. “I thought it was going to go down.”
Merrigan, who had steadfastly competed despite a broken right foot this season, saw his own injury flare up at the worst possible moment. After clearing 15-5 and 15-6 in the past three weeks, the San Benito record holder topped out at 14-4 on this day.
“I was up there with the big dogs,” Merrigan said. “I just messed up. Maybe it was such a big meet, I was pumped up and … . You want to be on every time, but I definitely wasn’t on today.”
“I’m definitely disappointed,” he continued, “Because every single time I went for the height … I landed right on top of the bar. I didn’t get enough depth in the pit.”
Nevertheless, Merrigan and Schroder became the first pair of San Benito athletes to qualify for state in the same event, according to a search performed by current and former ‘Baler coaches.
While noting his athletes’ injuries, San Benito pole vault coach Julio Trinidad said advancing to the finals just wasn’t in the cards.
“We’re not out here to make excuses,” Trinidad said. “It is what it is and we have to deal with it. We wanted it to last for one more night, but, no.”
While Schroder has every expectation to return to State next year as a senior, Friday’s preliminaries marked the final competitions for Boyd and Merrigan as ‘Balers. Both seniors parlayed their track and field excellence into opportunities to continue competing at the collegiate level next season.
Boyd heads to Northern Arizona and Merrigan is set to attend Cal State-Fullerton.
Morales shared his pride of Boyd’s accomplishments.
“She’s hard on herself right now, where she really should be proud of herself,” Morales said of the school record holder in the 1600-, 3000- and 3200-meter events.
Of Merrigan, Trinidad said: “Vaulting set the path for his future. This is the cap-off for a great vaulting career.”
