In total, San Benito will send the boys’ 4×400 relay team and
six individuals competing in eight events to Friday night’s CCS
Championships, including multi-event competitors like Jason
Roascio, David Kret, Scott Medina and Vanessa Estrada.
GILROY
The San Benito boys’ track and field team has the potential and the talent to contend for a Central Coast Section title this season. The question is whether that talent can remain healthy.
A long season is starting to take its toll.
“We’re holding them together with duct tape and bubble gum at this point,” boys coach Iran White said Saturday after the CCS Semifinals in Gilroy.
Narrowing the field was the name of the game on Saturday at the Garcia-Elder Sports Complex, where hopefuls looked to simply earn a bid toward Friday’s CCS Championships.
For San Benito, Scott Medina in the 300 hurdles (38.31) and high jump (6-02), Enrique Ramos in the shot put (50-07 3/4), David Kret in the 800 (1:57.05) and the boys’ 4×400 relay team (3:21.47) will all be in attendance for Friday’s finals, while Vanessa Estrada in the 1,600 (5:09.79) and 3,200 (11:15.55) and Krystal Alnas in the discus (124-0) qualified as well.
Follow Free Lance Sports on Twitter.
But for participants like Jason Roascio, each week is becoming more difficult.
“My leg started acting up. After the 400 (meters), it was really painful,” said Roascio, who is suffering from a minor case of compartment syndrome in his lower right leg. “It went away but when I ran, it came back.”
He later added, “It hurts a lot more than it did last week.”
It’s become more of a lingering issue for Roascio, too, who began experiencing the pain toward the end of the regular season. Although he qualified to the CCS Championships in the 400 meters on Saturday when he won his heat in a time of 49.84 seconds, and also ran the anchor leg of the finals-bound 4×400 relay team, the senior sprinter fell short in the 200 meters, finishing in 13th with a time of 23.15 seconds, just outside of a top-eight qualifying spot.
“During the 400 it wasn’t as bad, but it was starting to hurt a lot, so I rested it,” Roascio said of his leg. “In the 200 I still tried to go through it, but it just got to a point where I couldn’t accelerate anymore.”
Despite finishing third overall with a 22.14 in the 200 meters last season at CCS, and despite clocking the third fastest recorded time in the section this season in 22.06, Roascio will not compete in the 200 meters on Friday night — a painful loss, to say the least.
“We really hoped that wouldn’t happen,” White said. “We’ve been dealing with injuries for a while and it’s catching up with us. We’re getting by.
“It’s not the situation we wanted going into the final, but we’ll go see where all the cards are and see exactly where we stand.”
Near-misses were not few and far between for the Baler boys on Saturday. The 4×100 relay team finished 10th in 43.57, just 14 one-hundredths of a second outside of a top-8 spot, while Jayjoel Fernandez finished in a similar position after he took 10th in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 15.71 seconds, just 14 one-hundredths out of a qualifying spot as well.
Senior Emmett King, meanwhile, finished 11th and 12th in the discus and shot put, respectively, posting marks of 134-01 and 47-03.
“We should still be able to place high,” White said. “We’ll do the best we can. It’s just like any other meet — the team in the lead, they’ve got to come and do it. We’ll bring our best and we’ll see what they bring.”
In total, San Benito will send the boys’ 4×400 relay team and six individuals competing in eight events, including multi-event competitors like Roascio, David Kret, Scott Medina and Vanessa Estrada.
Roascio, Kret, Medina and Steven Hernandez combined to make the foursome of the 1,600-meter relay, which finished first in a time of 3:21.74. Hernandez was running as the second alternate, though, as first alternate Michael Bocksnick was out with an illness and the team’s usual second-leg runner, Taylor Lothman, was unavailable to compete, White said.
Although only a top-eight placing was needed to advance to finals, the San Benito foursome didn’t shy away from taking the top spot on Saturday.
Medina, too, placed first in the high jump event with a 6-02, was first in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 38.31 seconds, while junior Krystal Alnas earned first-place honors in the discus event with a toss of 124-0.
As for Estrada, she used her “disappointing” performance in the 1,600 meters on Saturday to shave some 15 seconds off her 3,200-meter race later that same day.
She’ll compete in both events during Friday’s CCS finals.
“I was pretty mad about my mile. It said I made it, but it was too close,” said Estrada, who qualified toward the finals by roughly five seconds in the 1,600 with a time of 5:09.79.
Although not the mark she was looking for, even if it meant a bid toward Friday’s finals, the sophomore harrier took that anger from the 1,600 and put it directly into the 3,200.
And one week after she finished the TCAL Championships in a time of 11:30.17, Estrada recorded an 11:15.55 on Saturday in the 3,200 meters.
“There’s always gonna be someone faster, someone who you have to catch,” Estrada added. “Go big or go home. That’s the goal.
“Making (CCS) makes me happy, but I want to get a good time, too.”
Senior Enrique Ramos, who finished one spot short by placing ninth in the shot put during last season’s CCS Semifinals, earned a sixth-place finish on Saturday and a bid toward finals with a throw of 50-07 ¾.
David Kret was nearly in the near-miss category, but the San Benito junior locked down the eighth and final qualifying spot toward finals on Saturday when he recorded a 1:57.05 in the 800 meters.
He defeated ninth-place finisher Arnaud Kpachavi of Woodside Priory by 15 one-hundredths of a second.
“I barely got into that,” said Kret, who was leading his heat with 50 meters to go when he was surpassed by Henry Manning of Los Gatos (1:56.58). “I didn’t know if I had made it. All the times were so close together.”
So close, in fact, that although Kret earned the last qualifying spot toward the CCS Championships, he still has aspirations of finishing in the top three on Friday night and qualifying to state.
All eight runners are within less than two seconds of one another.
“It’s close enough where it’s anybody’s race,” Kret said.
To see complete results from the Central Coast Section Semifinals, go here.
