Arcadia Defends, Covina Breaks Through at 2015 SGV Champs

The 10th Annual San Gabriel Valley Championships was a day of firsts.  It was the first SGV meet for five schools.  It was the first time we had a repeat Athlete of the Meet and it was the first time that weather forced us to call off part of the meet!

You can view the SGV Trib Groups Coverage – which includes Athlete interviews at this link.

You can also view interviews at Keith Lair’s Tout page (Can’t figure out how to embed them here.)

The Arcadia girls defended their team championship in convincing fashion.  The were led by an amazing 1-2-3-4 finish in the 400, with all four girls under 60 seconds! The Varsity girls completed 9 of the 16 events and the Apaches had 54.2 points to runner-up Walnut‘s 47 with South Pasadena two more back.

Covina Boys – 2015 SGV Champs – Receiving their Trophy

Covina won the boys title over defenders Damien. The Colts did not win an event, but they scored in 7 of the 9 completed. Junior Daniel Salazar‘s 2nd place in the 1600 was their top finish in the nine complete events.

Despite the poor conditions, there were five meet records, while 14 boys and 21 girls took spots in the meet’s All-Time Top Ten Performers List.

Jessica Gallardo (Jr, Bishop Amat) was the Girls Athlete of the Meet, narrowly edging out Kayla Richardson of Walnut.  Jessica won a stirring 1600 in 5:00.36 over San Dimas soph Trinity Ruelas and she now ranks #2 in meet history and #13 All-Time SGV.  Jessica clinched top honors with a dominating 4 second win in the 800.

Damien Senior Thaddeus Smith earned his second Athlete of the Meet award with his meet records in the 400 and 4×100 relay.  His 48.16 (#30 AT SGV) in the one lap was not only fast but exceptionally well executed, especially when one learns that this was only his second 400 off the blocks… ever!

Other Record Performances:

• Girls 100: Kayla Richardson (Jr, Walnut) took down a very strong record with her 11.98.
• Girls 400: Lauren Buehner (Fr, Arcadia) – 57.14
• Girls 4×100: Walnut (Malia Avila, Kayla Richardson, Victoria Sandoval & Kyla Richardson) – 46.71.  Arcadia – 46.85 was also under the old record, and they now rank #8 & #10 All-Time SGV.
• Boys 4×100: Damien (Brandon Carlin, Thaddeus Smith, Kaodilichi Nwuda & Zachary Shinnick) – 41.82 (#35 AT SGV).

Ayala boys, in their first year in the meet, were the Frosh/Soph Champs, while the Arcadia dominated to retain the girls championship.

There were four Frosh/Soph Meet Records

• 4×100: Arcadia (Johanna Reed, Courtney Chan, Stephanie Yen, Caitlin Morris) – 50.89
• Triple Jump: Stephanie Yen (Fr, Arcadia) – 33-09
• 3200: Angel Aguirre (So, California) – 9:46.42
• 110 hurdles: Elijah Huger (So, Wilson) – 15:60

Here are the results (with some post-Saturday corrections)

• 2 column pdf: 15 sgv corrected 2 column results
• Hytek flat html: 15 corrected html results

Here are the updated All-Time Performers Lists

• Varsity: 15-SGV-top-10-Var-perf
• Frosh/Soph: 15-SGV-Top-5-SF-perf

The 11th Annual SGV Track & Field Championships will be Saturday April 23, 2016.  See you then!