Even though the five fastest distance boys did not race, the Paly boys’ track team easily beat Monta Vista, 81-49, at Wednesday’s dual meet.
According to long distance coach John Welsh, the coaches decided that the distance boys should rest in preparation for the St. Francis Invitational on Saturday.
“For distance guys, you can’t really race hard at multiple races during the week,” Welsh said. “We wanted the guys to run really good races at Francis, where they’ll face more competition.”
Junior Philip MacQuitty and senior Skyler Cummins did not run at all, while juniors Henry Jordan, Peter Wilson, and Josh Newby paced senior Colin Schmitt in the 3,200-meter race, treating the run like a workout rather than a race.
Even though these distance runners did not compete, the boys still managed to secure one point in the 1600-meter race with a third-place finish in the 1600-meter race by junior Ben Sklaroff, who ran a personal best of 4 minutes, 53 seconds.
“I felt I had a pretty good race, except that I got passed by a Monta Vista guy at the end, which was pretty disappointing,” Sklaroff said. “I guess I’d like to have a faster kick.”
In the 800-meter race, the Vikings narrowly missed scoring as senior Jay Nguyen finished fourth in 2 minutes, 13 seconds.
Towards the end of the meet, with Jordan, Wilson, and Newby pacing him for several laps, Schmitt claimed first place in the 3200-meter race in 10 minutes, 49 seconds.
In sprint events, the Vikings started the meet strong with a convincing win by the 400-meter relay team of junior Daniel Jones, seniors Paul Brown and Kasey Fields, and freshman Miles Anderson. The boys felt that they did not face any real competition from the Monta Vista relay team, but they were satisfied with their own improved hand-offs.
“It was hard to tell [how well we did] because the other team was a lot slower,” Anderson said. “They were not really competition.”
Later in the meet, Jones won both the 100-meter and 200-meter sprints.
Fellow junior Dustin Na led the Vikings in the hurdles race, claiming second overall in both the 110 hurdles and the 300 hurdles.
Brown dominated the 400-meter run while battling a strong breeze.
“I PR’d [got a personal record],” Brown said. “It felt like a bad race, but since I PR’d, it felt good. Overall, it was a good race.”
In the long jump, senior Bobby Holman easily won with a 19 foot, 3 7/8 inch jump, but he did not feel satisfied with his performance.
“I need to train a lot harder than I am,” Holman said. “But I got the win — that’s all that matters.”
The Vikings decided to wrap up the evening with an April Fool’s Day trick on Nguyen as he came in for the hand-off in the 1600-meter relay. At Sklaroff’s suggestion, junior Alex Voet, the second leg of the relay, intentionally sped up at the hand-off so that Nguyen could not complete the baton pass. The team had a good laugh as Nguyen failed to catch up with Voet, eventually dropping the baton in the effort.
The boys will compete again at 3 p.m. on Thursday, April 9, against Milpitas High School on the Palo Alto High School track.