Culver Track Team Competes Well at Mira Costa

By Fred Altieri

Sports Reporter

While the majority of the Culver City High students have been enjoying Spring Break 2015 at the many entertainment spots, beaches, mountains and deserts of Southern California and beyond the school's track and field team has been training and competing as the season accelerates past the preliminary stage.

The Centaur sprinters, runners, hurdlers, jumpers and throwers took a short ride to Manhattan Beach to participate in Mira Costa High's 21st Mustang Relays on Saturday, March 28 in the cozy and scenic Waller Stadium.

A very-welcome ocean breeze refreshed the large crowd and athletes against the very-warm temperatures throughout the day.

At stake were the always-coveted medals but the meet also served as a qualifier for the upcoming Arcadia Invitational, annually the biggest high school meet in the country.

The Culver squad successfully qualified four relay teams and one sprinter by the time the dust had settled.

That invitational is taking place in Arcadia High's Salter Stadium on April 10-11. Of note is that the stadium is named after Culver High athletic director Tom Salter's father, Dick, who served as Arcadia's athletic director 1974-92 and its head football coach from 1970-89.

The Culver squads that qualified were: both the boys and the girls 4 x 100m and 4 x 200m relay teams and Joylyn Dailey who qualified in the varsity girls 100m dash. The boys 4 x 100m squad qualified at 44:18 seconds and the boys 4 x 200m made it with a 1:31.74 time. The girls 4 x 100m team ran 48.66 seconds and the girls 4 x 200m qualified at 1:42.69.

Culver long distance coach Tom Fritzius on the team's relay logistics: "The Mustang Relays has been going on for years and is a meet we try to go to every year. It usually comes up during our Spring Break. Part of the problem Saturday was trying to gather enough of our athletes to run in the events.

"We have to have four runners for the relays and in our case for the boys distance medley relay we were two guys short. In the girls distance medley relay we were one girl short."

It was quite a day for the one Centaur who took home a first place medal. Freshman Jasmine Marrero finished with a time of 17.46 in the frosh/soph girls 100m hurdles to beat out the 29 competitors running in four sections.

The Culver varsity squad had some noteworthy individual performances. In the girls 100m dash Dayley finished 2nd in her race with a time of 12.18 and lost out by only .08 of a second to Jasmin Reed of Serra High. Junior Veronica Mendez finished 9th at 12.95. Senior Amber Wacker finished 16th at 13.29.

The Culver boys varsity sprinters excelled in the 100m dash as well. Junior Cahlil Hooper with a time of 11.09 lost in a photo finish by .01 of a second to Luis Tyler of West Torrance. Senior Jerrett Anderson finished a close third at 12.20.

In the varsity girls long jump Nia Garcia finished 7th out of 29 jumpers overall with a leap of 15' 02.75". Junior Fred Poindexter finished 14th overall in the varsity boys long jump with a leap of 17' 3''.

Garcia also finished 7th at 16.52 and Cedrinae Thompson finished 10th at 17.37 in the varsity girls 100m hurdles. Thompson finished 9th overall in the varsity girls 300m hurdles with a time of 50.69. Garcia finished 11th at 52.72.

Junior Audrey Davies took home a third place medal in the varsity girls shot put with a toss of 33' 07".

Fritzius acknowledged personal bests by five of his young distant runners: "Abraham Vazquez in his first year of running the 800m set a PR of 2:07.75 in his leg of the 4 x 800m event.

"David Espinosa, a first-year runner, PR'ed in the 1600m with a 5:32. Freshman Matthew Kojima set a PR in the first of two 800m events he ran with a time of 2:43.33.

"Alex Palacios, a former gymnast and first year runner, ran two 800's and set her PR at 2:55.42. Ella Roche-Willis ran the 1200 leg in the distance medley relay with a PR of 4:36.26."

Impressive again was Sam Roberts in the varsity hurdle events. He was the only freshman running in either event and finished 12th out of 30 overall in the 110m hurdles with a time of 16.81. He placed even higher in the 300m hurdles at 6th overall with a time of 42.56 against the veteran field.

The Culver frosh/soph squad also performed well. The girls placed three in the high jump event. Yasmin Randa Ashley finished 3rd overall with a jump of 4' 8". Angel Morris cleared 4' 4" to finish tied for 8th and Angie Wacker finished tied for 13th at 4 feet.

Sophomore Harley Robinson finished 5th in the girls long jump with a leap of 14' 11". Stephen Ashby finished 10th in the boys long jump at 18' 01".

The next meet is on April 9 at Culver High as the Centaurs host El Segundo and Hawthorne High in Jerry Chabola Stadium.