The girls’ varsity track team put up a loss in its first meet of the season, falling 71-56 to the Mountain View Spartans despite strong finishes in sprints and distance races.
The Vikings’ sprinting led their effort against the Spartans, as sophomore Emily Yeates won both the 100m and 200m dashes. Paly swept the 100m race, with sophomores Erika Hoglund and Shannee Braun coming in behind Yeates.
“We definitely had better sprinting than they did,” girls’ head coach Paul Jones sad.
Senior mid-distance runner Mia Lattanzi dominated the 800m run with a 2:19.03 finish. She pulled away from the pack early and commanded a big lead, beating the next closest finisher by nearly four seconds.
“It was nice, with no one right behind me,” Lattanzi said. “[I was] able to focus and relax and push myself.”
Senior long distance runner Leah Gaeta also had a big impact on the Vikings’ effort. She finished second in the 400m run at 1:05, fourth in the 1600m run in 5:25, and ran the anchor leg of the 4x 400m relay. Jones said that Gaeta would not ordinarily run that many events.
“It’s mostly [due to] sprinters who need to move up and are a little wimpy on that,” Jones said.
In the field, junior Jennifer Jansen scored in both the shot put and discus, taking third place in the shot put with a throw of 23 feet.
Paly nearly closed the scoring gap against the Spartans late in the meet. Jansen and freshmen Hillary Ma finished second and third respectively in the discus and sophomores Regina Wang and Kathleen Higgins took second and third place in the 3200m run to bring the Vikings within ten points, 66-56. Jones lauded the underclassmen distance runners for putting up such strong finishes.
“We were missing a few people,” Jones said, ” but we have an incredibly good distance team.”
Paly could not develop the brief surge in momentum into a win, however, as the 4 x 400m relay team surrendered the final five points. The team lost the final race by four seconds in a time of 4:23.5.
That concluded an afternoon of trouble in the relays; the 4 x100 m relay team had been leading earlier in the afternoon before it was disqualified for failing to make a proper hand-off. Jones concluded that the Vikings could improve on that front in the coming weeks.
“We had some good stuff and some bad stuff,” Jones said.
The junior varsity girls’ team also lost to the Spartans, 96-22.
The Vikings will next face the Monta Vista Matadors Thursday at 3 p.m. on the Paly track.