The Palo Alto High School boys’ track team can enjoy spring break with a third victory under its belt after the Vikings easily beat Los Gatos, once a Central Coast Section powerhouse, 77-48, on Thursday at home.
The Vikings secured the win despite the absence of senior distance standouts Philip MacQuitty, Josh Newby, Peter Wilson and Ben Sklaroff. The distance runners are racing at the Arcadia Invitational this Friday and Saturday at Arcadia High School in Los Angeles. All four athletes raced in the 4 x 1760 yard relay on Friday, and MacQuitty will also race individually in the mile on Saturday.
Since senior Henry Jordan would not be competing at Arcadia, he decided to attempt to win all four distance events on Thursday, a challenging feat that, if achieved, would score 20 points for the Vikings. Head coach Jason Fung promised Jordan a jacket similar to the one MacQuitty received for breaking a school record in the 800 meter if Jordan succeeded in winning the 1,600-meter, 800-meter, 3,200-meter and 1,600-meter relay races, according to Jordan.
Jordan’s ambitions ended early, however, when he lost a head-to-head battle at the end of the 1,600-meter race, and was disqualified for getting in the way of a Los Gatos runner.
“I kind of cut the guy off at the end,” Jordan said. “He still beat me but more than one coach called me out on it as a DQ [disqualification].”
Jordan said he was still satisfied with his time of 4 minutes, 38 seconds, a personal best for the season. However, because he did not win the event, his pursuit for 20 points ended there, and he only raced one other event in the meet, capturing third in the 800-meter race in 2:12.
A key component to Paly’s victory was Los Gatos’ short roster, as the Vikings wound up racing against themselves in several events. Los Gatos did not race a 400-meter relay team for either the boys or girls divisions, which was disappointing for the competitive Paly sprinters.
“It sort of sucked,” junior relay member Miles Anderson said. “[There was] no one to really push you or anything.”
The boys also raced the relay conservatively after the girls’ relay lost the race against itself when it failed to complete a hand-off between the second and third runners.
“I think we went slower so we didn’t run out of the zones,” Anderson said.
The Vikings swept events they usually struggle in, as Los Gatos did not race a single varsity hurdler.
“In places we normally get swept, like hurdling, we swept,” Fung said. Paly also swept the shot put and high jump and dominated in other field events.
Paly also saw the return of senior sprinter Daniel Jones to his main events, the 100 and 200-meter races. This was the first time Jones ran the sprint events in a dual meet this season because he was saving his hamstrings, but he decided to try this meet since his legs felt good that day, according to Jones.
“I PR’d [set a personal record] by one hundredth of a second in the 200 from last year, which was good to get a shirt from Coach Fung,” Jones said.
While Jones was not very happy with his 100-meter time, he will have another chance to race it at the CCS Top 8 the week after spring break.
“I’m currently ranked second or third in the 100 in CCS right now so I feel obligated to go and see if I can beat the other one or two guys,” Jones said.
The Vikings will not race next week because of spring break, so the next race will be on Thursday, April 22, at Gunn High School.
“Going into break it’s good to get good solid wins,” Fung said. “It’s always nice to beat Los Gatos.”