The Palo Alto High School varsity girls’ track and field team lost to Gunn High School, 74-52, on Thursday.
Although the team lost overall to Gunn, both varsity and junior varsity runners broke personal records.
For the distance events, sophomore Electra Colevas and junior Erin Kiekhafer placed second and third in the 800 meter race. Senior Regina Wang also placed third in the two mile race, while junior Susan Heinselman placed third in the mile, running an impressive time of 5:31.87. Although Heinselman ran a personal record time for the season, she shared mixed feelings about her race.
“I went out with the mindset to do my best,” Heinselman said. “I could have kicked harder at the end, but otherwise I had a good race.”
Palo Alto’s sprinters did well against Gunn, placing high in multiple events. Senior Emily Yeats placed second in both the 100-meter dash and hurdles, while sophomore Torie Nielsen placed first in the 200-meter dash. The varsity girls’ relay team did extremely well in the 4 x 100 meter race, placing first in 50.19 for a personal season record.
Sophomore relay sprinter Lydia Guo was satisfied with the team’s performance this week.
“Things went really smoothly this time,” Guo said. “We messed up a few weeks ago, but I think we did really well this time.”
The girls’ field team also did extremely well with junior Katerina Peterson placing first in both the shot put and the discus throw events, throwing 89-00.0 and 34-02.0 feet respectively.
The Paly coaches felt that individual runners preformed well.
“We had some really solid times,” girls’ running coach Paul Jones said, “junior varsity in particular had a lot of PRs [personal records]; it was a good day.”
Unfortunately for Paly, the loss against Gunn will prove to be critical in the upcoming Santa Clara Valley league championships. In order to score enough points overall, Palo Alto needs to place ahead of strong contenders like Mountain View High School.
“It is really important to win in the last two meets for a change at leagues,” head track coach Jason Fung said, “we need Mountain View High School to place behind us.”
Palo Alto’s last track meet before leagues will be at 3 p.m. on Thursday at Los Altos High School against Los Altos.