Varsity girls and boys and frosh/soph boys track and field competed at league prelims and finals Thursday, April 25 and finished as Hacienda League Champions at all levels for varsity girls, varsity boys and frosh/soph boys.
Individual placements in the preliminaries and finals determine who competed at the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) championships Saturday, May 4.
Walnut finished with 28 first, second or third places in prelims and 30 in finals. With times of 16.30 in the varsity 110-meter hurdles finals and 42.15 in the varsity 300-meter hurdles finals and a height of 11 feet, 6 inches in the varsity pole vault finals, junior Jack Thompson placed second, third and second respectively. These placings in the finals allowed him to move on to CIF for his events.
“I think it went pretty well because I qualified for CIF,” Thompson said. “I think the main thing that has motivated me is the competition. Whenever I see someone with a higher mark than me I always think ‘I’ve got to beat them now.’”
Junior Daniel Li placed second in triple jump finals with a mark of 42 feet, 9 ¾ inches and first in long jump finals with a mark of 22 feet, 2 inches, giving what he has been working towards the entire year: a qualification for CIF.
“Last year I didn’t do that good; I didn’t even beat my freshman year [mark], but now I feel like everything’s back,” Li said. “I feel like all my hard work has really paid off. Every day I’ve been here practicing until 7 p.m. and that was all for this. It was all for today.”
Sophomore Jonathan Castellanos placed fifth for the varsity 800-meter run finals, sixth in the varsity 1600-meter run finals and 10th in the 3200-meter run finals. His respective times were 2:03.21, 4:43.30 and 10:49.07.
“I tried to pace myself a lot because I had a lot of runs to do,” Castellanos said. “Personally, I am motivated by my own ambitions, alongside the crowd’s cheering throughout each race. While I could not qualify for CIF this year, I think it will all come together next season, given that this [race] is another stepping stone for me to succeed.”
Freshman Julianna Laurel placed second in the varsity 1600-meter finals with a personal record of 5:30.76, giving her a place at CIF.
“I definitely tried to stay with the pack and tried to stick with the plan I came into the race with. I also had to know when to kick in at the right moment,” Laurel said. “What really motivated me was telling myself ‘I have to get top three to make it to CIF and that really pushed me during the third and fourth laps. Ω
