Wow, that was an interesting way to start the track season. The kids did great. Some new personal records. The varsity boys, fresh-soph boys and JV girls all won against Lynbrook. And nobody floated away.

My pictures are online at
  https://www.flickr.com/photos/malcolmslaney/albums/72157665642772706
All three pages worth. (I know I missed a lot of kids… but hopefully I’ll get yours next time.)

A few highlights.

Senior Tommy Vongham is on his way to a successful year with nice wins in both hurdles!!! Watch for up and coming soph. Darby Fetler who turned in a fine time in the 65HH (and took first place in the triple jump and high jump)!!!

Sophomore Julia Doubson easily won the varsity girls 3200m, and Bryn, recovering from injuries, led through most of the 800m race, but was out kicked. Welcome back Bryn.

Tanner PR’ed in the 400m, by a full 2 seconds. That was great to see. Annalise won the varsity girls long jump and Austin jumped 20’ to win the varsity boys long jump.

Sam Desre ran his first 800m race ever, just barely missed 1st place, and finished in 2:01.55. We might have a new middle-distance guy.

In his first time out, freshman Cameron Miller won the fresh-soph boys long jump!!! (But according to the stats, he came in last in the triple jump… one step at a time, Cameron :-) Michel-Ange Siaba easily took first in the varsity triple jump and 2nd in the high jump!

Among the throwers:
Freshman Emma Johnson, threw really well in her first meet as a freshman!!!! Exactly 30’, which exceeded anything she's done in practice, to just miss first place for the Varsity Girls. Senior Ryan Jamison easily took first place, pushing the shot out to 41’. Kevin Giffen in his very first Paly meet won the fresh-soph boys competition with a 38’ throw (and would have gotten him 3rd in the varsity meet!!! Mia Bloom took first place in the JV girls discus with a 65’ throw, and Allison Salinas throwing for a third place. Cat Yu took 2nd in the varsity girls discus (and 2nd in the 100m hurdles).

New hurdle PR's where turned in by Nicole Chen, Karen Li, Tyler Marik, Darby, Sherwin A, and Jacob Chen

Among the runners, it was pretty cool to see both Bolarinwa kids (Titi and Dami) anchor the two winning varsity 4x100m relay teams. Eli handily won the 100m and 200m races, and was part of the domineering 4x400m team (with Charlie, Kent, and Dami). Kent easily won the 1600m and 3200m races with his patented sit-and-kick strategy (let Justin set the pace for all but 200m, and then zoom right by him), and Kent reset the meet records.

Palo Alto Weekly has their article online at http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2016/03/11/palo-alto-boys-get-track-season-off-and-running-with-a-win

The next meet is a small one, the Kings Academy Distance Festival. The list of people entered is available here
  http://lynbrooksports.prepcaltrack.com/ATHLETICS/TRACK/2016/tka_ent.htm
and the meet timing is at
  http://lynbrooksports.prepcaltrack.com/ATHLETICS/TRACK/2016/tka_time.txt

Good job to all the kids who kept their good spirits in spite of the lousy weather!!! And thanks to all the parents that came out to volunteer and to cheer for all the kids.

The meet results are online at
  http://lynbrooksports.prepcaltrack.com/ATHLETICS/TRACK/2016/lyn_paly.htm
I don’t believe they are final yet, since there was some confusion with the field events and markings that smeared in the rain.

And Cooper Chunlou from the Palo Alto Voice (I think) has some of his pictures online. He was able to catch some of the jumps that I missed.
  https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3KGsJO-bBoYYW1vUWtaU2tnUWM&usp=sharing

And in addition to Julia Doubson winning the 3200 (2 mile), Sarah Wang and Maya Akkaraju swept up the rest of the awards in that race! Now that’s domination. And frosh Caroline Elarde won the JV800.

That’s all for today. Some of the boys and girls are in Sunnyvale tomorrow for the TKA Distance Festival (and sprints)—details below. Next Thursday we’re back at Paly to host a visit by Homestead High.

— Malcolm