It was a Moore League kind of day at Cerritos College for the CIF Track & Field Finals, as the Long Beach Poly girls’ track team took home their second-straight CIF title, and Wilson and Millikan’s girls’ teams also placed in the top five. Poly was out in front with 100.5 points, followed by Rancho Verde with 81, Wilson with 42, and Millikan with 25. In the boys’ competition, Poly took sixth and the Rams took eighth. This is the 12th time the Jackrabbits have won the girls’ CIF title, more than any other school; it’s also their sixth title in the last nine years.
The competition for the well-rounded Lady Trackrabbits was fierce, particularly from Rancho Verde, who was in the running for the section title right up until the final event; Poly put the cherry on top in the final race, the 4X400 relay, which they won with the impressive time of 3:45.42, seven seconds faster than their prelim time and over three seconds faster than second-place Rancho Verde.
The battle royale started early, in the very first track event, as Poly and Rancho Verde came into the girls’ 4X100 relay with the two best qualifying times, separated by two-tenths of a second. Saturday’s first race lived up to its potential in a tight race that saw Poly’s Akawkaw Ndipagbor nearly tracking down the Rancho Verde leader on the anchor leg. Rancho Verde took the race, and an early overall point lead, by a half-second. In a bizarre turn of events, the 4X100 actually had to be re-run due to an interference call, after a bystander wandered onto the track in the midst of the third exchange. Poly was originally closer (0.14) in the first race, and Wilson initially finished fourth—but the Bruins moved up to third in the rerun.
Ndipagbor was the most impressive runner of the day, anchoring the 4X100, kicking off the 4X400, and winning the 400-meter going away, with the day’s best time of 53.98, besting the runner from, you guessed it, Rancho Verde, who finished at 55.16. Poly coach Don Norford subbed Carisma Lyday in for Ndipagbor on the girls’ 200-meter, sensing that Poly had the inside track to the title and wanting to save Ndipagbor for the final relay. Ndipagbor’s two relays and one individual finish would have earned her enough points (28) to finish in fourth place out of the 45 teams entered in the competition.
“I felt good today,” she said after winning the 400. “It was smooth. I like breaking into the 53-minute mark.” After posting the best qualifying time in the event and turning so many heads in last year’s competition, the sophomore said she definitely felt the pressure this year. “[Even though I was favored to win], it’s still not easy, because of the pressure. Every runner one through nine is going to compete and come after you, because it’s CIF. I’d rather surprise people like I did last year.”
The other big race for the Jackrabbits was the girls’ 800-meter, which featured four Poly runners, as well as a Millikan entrant. Valencia’s Aly Drake ran a well-planned final 200 to take the win, and the Rams’ Paisley Pettway took second, but Poly picked up 18 points by finishing third through sixth (Neausha Logan followed by Dynasty Gammage, Tia Leake, and Erica Winston)—that’s as many points as a first place and a second place in two other events would have earned. The ‘Rabbits were also buoyed by Melia Cox’s first-place finish in the triple jump, with Poly’s Tara Richmond coming in third; Richmond also took top honors in the high jump, at 5’11”.
Wilson
The Bruins’ day started by finishing in third behind Rancho Verde and Poly in that tight 4×100 girls’ race, but they earned their third-place team finish with strong performances in the hurdle and field events. Nyjah Cousar gave her school a present on her birthday by winning the 300-meter low hurdles for the first time in her career, with a time of 42.44.
“I thought I’d just try to qualify [for the Masters meet next week],” she said after. “But I really don’t like it when people beat me—when I saw [Perris’ Ericka Nowell] in front of me, I was like, ‘Oh, no—I have to go get her.’”
Wilson didn’t dominate any one event, but top-five finishes in the 4X100 relay, the 100-meter dash, the 4X400 relay, the long jump, the triple jump, and the pole vault, along with Cousar’s first-place hurdle, showed that there’s more than one way to get towards the top of the leaderboard. Cousar also ran on both relays, and her effort on the 4X400 pushed Poly and Rancho Verdeo to the limit, putting the Bruins in third place.
Millikan
Millikan’s Ashley Smith was largely responsible for their fourth-place team finish, with a third-place hurdle, and a second-place finish in the high jump (behind Poly’s Richmond). Those two events netted more than half of Millikan’s team points, with Pettway throwing in the other individual performance with her second-place finish in the 800. The Rams also got three points from the girls’ 4X400, in an emotional sixth-place finish that ended with Smith’s teammates helping her hobble off the field, exhausted.
On the boys’ side, Jonathan Sanders, a Millikan football player as well as hurdler extraordinaire, came through in the clutch, with two second-place finishes, in the 110-meter and 300-meter hurdle events. “There’s always going to be the guy in CIF Division One,” said Sanders when asked if it was hard to finish second. “Second qualifies me for Masters, and I was happy with how I ran.” It’s not hard to feel bad about finishing behind La Sierra’s Reggie Wyatt in the 300-meter, as Wyatt had tremendous form to go with his tremendous lead. Sanders also ran an impressive anchor in the day’s final run, the boys’ 4X400 relay, gaining them a position by moving into second place.
For more results of all the Moore League athletes in the CIF track finals, visit this link, which has the full breakdown. We’ll update you with the full Masters-qualifying info later in the week.