The Palo Alto High School boys’ track and field team defeated the Los Altos Eagles, 68-59, in the season’s last dual meet on Thursday at Los Altos.
The meet was the final race of the season for many boys on the team.The Vikings will next compete in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League Trials, which will feature the top three athletes from each school in each event. Thursday’s meet finalized the athletes competing for Paly, as the final spot in the 800-meter race was decided.
Junior Lucas Chan beat senior Varun Kohli with a time of 2:15.65 seconds to qualify for the third spot in the 800. Another notable performance in the event came from sophomore Nikolai Solgaard, who finished third in his first varsity race in 2:06.95, a personal record.
“I PR’d [set a personal record] and I was really happy with it,” Solgaard said. “It was a lot faster and I guess more of an adrenaline rush [than junior varsity], but overall it was pretty similar. I’m still annoyed because I lost a bet, though. I was about half a second behind what I was supposed to get to win the bet.”
While the distance team missed seniors Philip MacQuitty, Josh Newby and Ben Sklaroff, all due to illness, distance coach Joe Ginanni noticed many impressive performances from the team.
“We had multiple PRs,” Ginanni said. “Lots of frosh-soph guys like [sophomores Andre] Gouyet, Charlie [Kelsey], Matan [Geller], freshman Ben [May] and [senior] Pete [Wilson]. It’s good to have as a confidence boost going into Leagues.”
Wilson’s time of 4:36.10 in the 1600-meter race was good for third place, and this personal record was especially impressive considering the rough conditions.
“It was a good race, a one-second PR in bad conditions,” Wilson said. “There was the wind, the weird pacing, the distracting announcer.”
The race went out rather slower than usual, but Wilson was able to set his personal record with a blistering final lap. Two other seniors raced their final high school miles: Kohli barely missed breaking 5 minutes in 5:01.80 and senior Brian Raftery finished in 5:12.60.
Senior Henry Jordan also scored points with his first place finish in the 3200-meter race in 10:10.35. While this was slower than the personal record of 9:58 Jordan set last week, he was happy with his race considering the windy conditions.
“We went out pretty fast and just started slowing down and slowing down, and I just had to pull through in the end,” Jordan said.
The 400-meter relay welcomed back senior Daniel Jones for the first time this season, as Jones had avoided sprint races in dual meets to avoid irritating his hamstrings. The Paly team was already leading after the first leg by Jones, and, by the end, the Vikings had a convincing lead.
“I saw him, caught him, and then watched the rest of the team smoke them,” Jones said, referring to his impressive lead over the Los Altos lead leg.
The clean hand-offs in the relay were remarkable since the Vikings had only practiced hand-offs six times at practice, according to members of the relay team.
“We’ve done six hand-offs total,” Jones said. “But I wasn’t really nervous.”
Jones, sophomore Morris Gates-Mouton and senior Niklas Wahlberg also swept the 400-meter race with times of 52.89, 54.76 and 55.83, respectively. While these times were not that impressive, the places attested more to the boys’ performance as all the athletes faced a strong wind.
“I blame it all on the wind,” Wahlberg said. “I was happy but my time wasn’t that good.”
Paly also swept the shot put and claimed second and third in the discus throw.
“We kind of expected the sweep in the shot put,” senior Haris Sultani said. “In the discus I was disappointed because I threw well under my PR and what I was hoping to throw at this point in the season.”
Nonetheless, the Vikings showed some solid performances in their final competition before the two-day league meet, which will start at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday at Paly.
From that point forward, performances at each meet will determine qualification for the next meet. Top athletes from the league meet can qualify for the SCVAL Qualifiers. From there, they can qualify at each step for the Central Coast Section Semifinals, which narrows competitors down to attend the CCS Finals. Competitors who advance past that level will be invited to attend the state meet.
Editor’s Note: Daniel Jones did not participate in sprint races at dual meets to prevent further irritating his hamstrings. The current version of this story reflects this change.