Merrigan, Rice and Boyd in Sacramento this weekend
In his classic song “New York, New York,” Frank Sinatra says “if I can make it here, I’ll make it anywhere.”
Well, when it comes to high school track and field in this country, the same can be said of the California state meet.
Four area athletes will be competing amongst some of the country’s top track and field athletes when the qualifying round of the state meet kicks off this afternoon at Sacramento City College.
Gilroy junior Bobby Best (discus), Live Oak junior Cobbie Jones (800 meters) and San Benito seniors Todd Merrigan (pole vault) and Jesse Rice (400 meters) will all be participating in qualifying heats today. Field events begin at 2pm and the running events begin at 5pm. San Benito junior Amanda Boyd won’t run the 3200 until Saturday, when the one and only 3200 race will be held.
Best, who is making his first appearance at the state meet, took third at last week’s Central Coast Section Finals with a mark of 154-05. He’s seeded 20th out of 25. Best will have to finish in the top nine to advance to Saturday’s finals.
In the girls 800 meters, CCS runners hold the top five times at the meet and in the state, and Jones is one of them. The junior ran a PR and school-record breaking 2:09.84 for fourth place at the CCS Finals. She’s seeded fourth – out of 32 runners – behind Archbishop Mitty’s Christine Whalen (2:09.59), Menlo’s Libby Jenke (2:08.70) and Saratoga’s Alicia Follmar (2:07.79). Follmar is also the favorite for the 1600. The winners of the three heats and the next five fastest qualify for Saturday’s final.
Merrigan, like Best, will have to have one of the nine best marks in the prelims to advance. The senior earned a height of 14-11.00 in the CCS Finals, good for the 12th spot in the field of 31 vaulters. If Merrigan reaches any height higher than 15-00.00, he’ll break Cade McNown’s San Benito record. Scott Roth of Granite Bay (Sac-Joaquin Section) is the favorite going into the meet, having reached 17-02.00 in the section finals, a foot-and-a-half better than the state meet record.
Rice clocked a 49.17 in the 400 at last week’s CCS Finals, which earned him a 15th seed in the field of 27. David Gettis of the Los Angeles City Section’s Dorsey High has the top qualifying time of 46.08. The top seed from each of the three 400 heats automatically moves on to the finals, as do the next six fastest times from all heats combined.
Boyd broke the 11-minute mark for the first time at the CCS Finals, and finished with a time of 10:54.86. She is ranked 16th out of 31 runners that made the 3200 state final. Everyone in the field will be chasing Gunn’s Tori Tyler, to whom Boyd finished second in the CCS Finals, who runs a state-best 10:31.04.
Meet results will be posted in real time on he California Interscholastic Federation Web site, www.cifstate.org.
