State Bound
Hello nighthawk families and fans,
Saturday we had our D1 CIF Finals meet at Mt Carmel High School. This is one of the most highly anticipated meets in the season and our Nighthawks worked very hard to qualify! We ended the day with tons of PRs, both teams finishing 4th overall in Division 1, a new school record and a handful of athletes qualifying for the California State Meet next week! Find the full meet results here, an album of photos from the meet by Nick Echsner here and keep reading for some highlights. REMINDER, our team awards banquet is taking place this Wednesday May 24th in the Del Norte Gymnasium starting at 5:00 pm. All athletes and their families are encouraged to join us for an evening celebrating the accomplishments of our team. If you plan to attend please take the time to fill out this RSVP form so we can get a head count for the event. We hope to see you all there.
Pictured, Junior Anna Prasouvo. Photo by Nick Echsner
Meet Recap
Girls Meet -
The meet started off with an incredibly excited race where our Girls 4x100 set a new school record time of 49.11 seconds finishing 5th in Division 1! Hannah Riggins led the girls 1600 finishing second in division 1 and coming 1 hundredth of a second faster than her personal record, punching her ticket to the State Meet again this year. Bianca Calafato represented the Nighthawks in the 400, running a huge PR of 59.80, finishing 2nd in her heat after making it in as an alternate. Kloe Taylor turned High Jumper at the 2nd half of the season and got herself all the way to CIF Finals finishing 5th in Division 1! San Diego has an incredible group of girls pole vaulters, but Paige Echsner held her own, surpassing the auto qualifying mark for state with a new PR of 12’ 9”, we hope she will be able to improve her mark even further at the state meet next weekend. Her sister Ella Echsner set a huge PR in the 300 hurdles, now sitting 3rd all time in school history and nabbed the 5th place spot on the D1 podium. Our girls 4x800 continued to dominate in San Diego, finishing first by 7 seconds. We will see them again at the state meet against a much more competitive field. Final race of the day for the girls meet was the 4x400 relay and our girls put on a show! We ran the second fastest time in school history to qualify for state again and finished 2nd in Division 1 by less than half a second. Congratulations to all of our girls who competed on Saturday and represented our team so well! Wishing the best of luck to those athletes headed to the California State Meet next weekend.
Boys Meet -
As the girls meet ended, we had the boys meet to look forward to and they did not disappoint! Starting off with the 4x100, the boys finished 2nd in division 1 running the 3rd fastest time in school history. Danny Tragarz represented the Nighthawks in long jump, setting a huge PR with a jump of 21’ 9.5” for a 3rd place finish in D1. Then in the boys mile Luke Jin set a new PR and clinched the 6th place spot on the podium for D1. Senior Danny Tragarz came back in his 4th event of the day, the 300 hurdles. He ran amongst a very competitive field and held his own, setting a new personal record (less than half a second off of our current school record) and earned himself a ticket to the state meet. Our final event of the day was the boys 4x800 and it left us all at the edge of our seats. They left it all on the track, pulling off a first place finish at the line by less than half a second and punched their tickets to the state meet next week!
Congratulations to all of those athletes who competed this past weekend, we are very proud of their hard work to get here and how well they represented our program. We would like to take the time to recognize those athletes whose performance at CIF Prelims landed them onto our top 10 all-time lists.
Kaylee Tan (12), Savanna Jones (12), Kaylee Rebuggio (10) & Bianca Calafato (12) - Girls 4x100: 1st All-Time with a time of 49.11
Ella Echsner (11) - Girls 300 Hurdles: 3rd All-Time with a time of 45.82
Bianca Calafato (12) - Girls 400: 8th All-Time with a time of 59.80
Each of these athletes have made a great impact on our program, making themselves known as some of the best in their event since our school opened in 2009. We look forward to witnessing their continued success as the season goes on.
Our Next Meet
The final meet of our season, The California State Meet, takes place next weekend at Buchannan High School in Clovis California. The top athletes across the state will come together for one of the best high school track meets in the nation. It is a HUGE deal to qualify for this meet and we are excited to be taking athletes in 6 events to compete.
Don’t forget to RSVP for our team awards banquet happening this Wednesday May 24th at 5pm in the Del Norte Gym
House Keeping
Are you a Doctor? We need the help of health care providers for our athletic physical night on May 31st. Find more information here.
Reminder, any athletes who are not moving on must return their uniform at practice. Athletes who do not turn in their uniforms and sweatpants will be subject to a fine.
Donate your used spikes to a Nighthawk in need!
If your athlete has spikes from last season that aren’t super torn up, they can use them again. If they are getting new spikes and don’t need their old ones, feel free to bring them to practice and we can share them with another nighthawk in need! Once your athlete gets their spikes, have them show their coach before wearing them at practice. We can help navigate each athletes needs.