Boyd, Osborne, Thompson, Weltz, Rice, Vasquez and Merrigan all
advance
At Saturday’s CCS track and field semifinals, the Haybaler track team broke a school record en route to qualifying six individuals and two relay teams for this Friday’s CCS finals.
On the boys side, Chuck Thompson (100 meters), Jeff Weltz (200 meters), Jesse Rice (400 meters), Rigo Vasquez (3200 meters) and Todd Merrigan (pole vault) advance to Friday’s meet at Los Gatos High School.
For the girls, Amanda Boyd qualified in the 1600 and the 3200 and Crystina Osborne advanced in the discus.
“I think we did very well,” said San Benito boys head coach Iran White. “In every sprinting event, we have someone qualified. That’s pretty impressive.”
The 4×100 meter relay team of Weltz, Thompson, Rice and Chad Tungate also qualified with an eighth-place finish and in the process, broke the San Benito school record by a half-second with a time of 43.34, White said. Previously, the relay’s best time this season had been 43.87.
The boys 4×400 meter relay team of Weltz, Rice, Kyle Bambrick and Ian Whitely also qualified with an eighth-place 3:30.06 performance. Bambrick ran in place of Tungate, who White said is still dealing with a sore hamstring. Depending on how this week goes, Tungate may be back in the lineup for Friday.
In the 400m, Rice, who took second at the CCS Finals last year, took fourth with a time of 50.12. Thompson also took fourth in the 100 (11.03).
“Chuck (Thompson) has a lot of confidence right now,” White said. “He really wants to make state in the 100 meters.”
Weltz ran a 22.50 for seventh-place in the 200, beating out Rice whom he finished behind at last week’s T-CAL Finals.
“That’s fine for Jesse because he just wants to run the 400 and concentrate on that,” White said. “Hopefully, he’ll be the CCS champ.” Rice was the section runner-up in the 400 meters last year.
White was a little disappointed in the team’s pole vault performance, but was happy that Merrigan advanced with a mark of 14-06.
“In the pole vault, we didn’t get all the guys in there,” White said. “It was really tough but they went out and battled.” Josh Schroder and Matt Wynne fell short of qualifying and finished tied for eleventh with vaults of 13-06.
Though Boyd had a great second-place finish in the 1600 (5:03.9), White said the junior will probably not compete in the event at the finals but concentrate instead on the 3200, her stronger event. Boyd took fifth in the 3200 (11:11.16).
“As well as she did running in the 1600, she’s probably going to drop it,” White said. “This last 1600 was a tune up.…Her best event is the 3200. That’s what a lot of athletes do. They want to be fresh to have the best opportunity to win.”
Osborne was the other ‘Baler girl to advance to the finals. She took fifth with a 116-05-foot throw.
A couple other area competitors also advanced to the final meet. Live Oak’s Cobbie Jones won the 800 with a time of 2:13.32 over Libby Jenke of Menlo (2:15.38). The Acorns’ Billy Wong also moved on by running to am eighth-place finish in the 1600 (4:24.42).A strong first half of competition at Saturday’s CCS track and field semifinals helped Gilroy thrower Bobby Best advance to the CCS finals in discus.
Best opened the day with a second-place throw of 159-05 feet, a personal best, which qualified him for the CCS final meet this Friday at Los Gatos High School. First-place went to Rolando Gomez of Pioneer, whose best throw reached 165-00.
In shot put, his second event of the day, Best was not in top form and finished eleventh with a throw of 45-03.75.
Rich Macy, one of GHS’ throwing coaches, said Best usually easily clears that distance. However, because Macy recently had a hip replaced, he hasn’t been at practice to work with Best for the past two weeks.
“Something must have happened with his form,” Macy said.
