After an unexpected transformer failure at Acalanes this Friday, our track team hastily changed plans and headed over to Northgate high school in Walnut Creek. What followed was our team’s most dominant performance of the year. While there were many great individual efforts throughout the day, the story of the meet was our relay teams. 

On the Girls side, our 4×100 relay team of Megan Yee, Jasmine Frost, Portia Seymour, and Carly Harriman opened the meet by putting Northgate’s team in a different zip code. This effort continued in the girls 4×400, where Elle Casselman and Megan Yee built a 100 meter lead for our fearless anchor, Lauren Yee, who finished the race with an impressive 62 second split running all by herself.

On the Boys side, Northgate held an early lead, edging us out in the final leg of the 4×100. In the 4×400, Northgate got out to an early lead, but Derek Kotarba, Tyler Hunt, and Sam Roth battled back and kept us in the race going into the final leg when Bennett Dodge took the baton. Bennett refused to lose – even though he had narrowly lost to Northgate’s anchor earlier, Bennett stayed in the race, and coming off the final turn, surged past the other runners and took home the win in an incredible come from behind victory! 

This week, we travel to Miramonte on Saturday, where we will face Miramonte, Las Lomas, St. Mary’s of Berkeley, and Monte Vista in our biggest meet yet!

Photos here, Pole Vault Photos here, full results here, and highlights below:

• Have yourself a day, Megan Yee! In addition to her amazing performances in the relays, Megan also took home the gold in the Long Jump and the 800 to complete the quadruple crown for the day.

• Kyle Otsuka dominates the throws with impressive PRs in both the Shotput (37 feet!) and Discus Throw (116 feet!), snagging the double crown!

• Portia Seymour wins the Girls 300 Meter Hurdles with an impressive PR of nearly two seconds! 

• After anchoring the girls 4×100 to victory, Carly Harriman goes on to win the Girls 100 Meter Dash and the Girls High Jump

• Brody Lim notches another Long Jump victory, and also breaks the 12 second barrier in the 100 meter dash to snag the team lead

• Luca Mathias and Liam Hill again take 1st and 2nd in the Boys 300 Meter Hurdles – this time running with hurdles at competition height!

• PR’s abound in the Pole Vault – Jack Bayless, Guy Ponsican, and Dominic Sarica all PR on the boys side, and on the Girls side, sophomore Gemma Villafan-Perez clears 6’6” to take home the silver

• Jasmine Frost PR’s in the Long Jump, and despite an issue with the blocks, Tim Widyono PRs in the 100 Meter dash

• Gold Star for Sophomore Tyler Hunt for a downright spectacular performance in

the 1600m race! After receiving some pacing help from Senior Star Sam Roth on

the first 3 laps, Tyler hit the jets and ran his final lap in 61 seconds to PR with a

blistering time of 4:21.15! This time ranks him 2nd in the NCS and 16th in the state.

• Co-Silver Stars for Senior Josh Evans and Freshman Logan Farzan for breaking the

5-minute mile barrier for their first time. For high school boys, the 5-minute mile

is a difficult, yet distinguished benchmark. Josh has chased this benchmark for

several years. His dedication and hard work paid off as he smashed this barrier

with a new PR of 4:54.40. 

• Freshman Logan Farzan showed up to this meet with a prior PR of 5:27.32. But he also showed up with something else. Da Fire!!!! Logan said before the race he was going for 5 minutes. A lofty goal. But he brought the fire and got the job done with a new PR of 4:59.76. Nice job Josh and Logan!

• Co-Bronze Stars for Freshman Olivia Williams and Junior Loic Windfuhr-Durand. It

takes courage for an athlete to leave their comfort zone and try a new strategy.

After being outkicked in prior races Olivia applied a new strategy of pushing the

pace early to tire out the competition. After settling in on the first lap she cranked up the pace and posted a PR of 5:30.07 that ranks her 12 th in the NCS. A natural speedster can sometimes struggle to pace themselves in a longer race.

• Although it would feel strange Loic tried the strategy of running negative splits in

the 800m. He ran a 66 second first lap (relaxed for him), but followed with a 63

second lap and posted a new PR 2:09.18. Way to go Olivia and Loic!

• Senior David Maron continues his pattern of consistent performance as a distance

runner with a new PR in the 1600m of 5:25.79. Nice one!

• Junior Thomas Bequette pierced the 6-minute barrier, setting a new PR in the

1600m of 5:56.24.

• PRs were made in the 1600m for Lucas Chow 5:43.70, Lena Johnson 6:02.50,

Katrina Ortman 6:26.16, Ruby Deeming 6:40.23, and Abby Drake 7:19.27.

Andrew Wartenberg had the Monster PR of the day by improving his prior time in

the 1600m of 8:25.00 down to 7:18.81 today. A Monster PR!!!!

• Ben Kokel and Sam Pecci set new PRs in the 800m of 2:24.98 and 2:37.15.

• Elle Cassleman continues to show up with fire in her eyes and set a new PR in the

800m of 2:29.53. This ranks her 13 th in the NCS. Nice one Elle!!!

Great performances all around from all of our Dons. Can’t wait for our big meet next week at Miramonte!

Your Coaches

Joe Escobar

David Kohls

Ed Basadula

Joy Upshaw

Sue Gersten

Chris Clark

Riley Noon

Aidan Mosley