Under the lights in a Tuesday night meet, the Viking girls’ track team was smothered, 87-34, by the Los Gatos Wildcats, who racked up points not only by outnumbering Paly in several events but also by competing in events where the Vikings (1-3) could not field a team.
“We had a few good individual performances and a team performance that showed that we had been on vacation for a week,” head coach Paul Jones said.
Among the bright spots was senior distance runner Mia Lattanzi’s victory in the 1600-meter run, which she finished in 5:13.86 to beat Los Gatos’ nearest finisher by almost six seconds and put up the Vikings’ only win on the track for the day. Sophomore Kathleen Higgins also added a point with her third-place finish in 5:50.72, to pull Paly within in two points of Los Gatos at 8-6.
In the 3200-meter run, sophomore Regina Wang and junior Elizabeth Scott finished second and third, respectively, to give the Vikings four more points from distance events. Wang finished in 12:24.86 and Scott crossed the line at 12:35.44. Jones attributed those results to the distance runners’ consistent efforts this year.
“The distance runner girls practiced well over the break and ran well today,” Jones said.
In the field, sophomore Erika Hoglund put up Paly’s only other event victory, taking another five points in the long jump with winning leap of 15 feet, 2½ inches. Junior Ahna Rao took second place, jumping 14 feet, 6¾ inches to bring in eight points for Paly on that event.
Hoglund also took third place in the 100-meter dash in 13.06 seconds, finishing just behind sophomore Emily Yeates who took second in 12.91 seconds to give Paly four more points, but that barely made a dent in the 56-20 lead that the Wildcats had taken.
Los Gatos dominated the rest of the meet, however, by sweeping several events and running teams in all events. Paly surrendered all three scoring places in the discus, the 100-meter hurdles, and 200-meter hurdles. The Vikings were also disqualified on the final leg of the 4 x 100-meter relay due to a faulty handoff and scratched the 400-meter run, giving up all 13 points available in those events combined.
“They [several runners] were hurt from playing soccer over the break, [and] they were sick,” Jones said, “we just weren’t in very good shape for today.”
The Vikings will next face the Milpitas Trojans at 3:00 p.m. on Apr. 10 in Milpitas.