Torrey Pines holds off Olympian in Division 1 girls final; Rancho Bernardo, Cathedral Catholic capture boys team titles

By Landon Negri for DyeStat

Alysah Hickey barely had time to get out of her car Saturday and she was winning events.

When it came to the long jump, though, she was convinced to take a little extra time – and it made a big difference.

The Coronado High junior won three titles, just missed on a fourth, and made serious noise in the long jump Saturday in the CIF-San Diego Section championship meet at Mt. Carmel High in North San Diego County.

While Hickey was winning early, Torrey Pines’ girls won late, clinching their second Division 1 title in three years and needing every bit of a gutsy performance by its girls 4x400 relay team, which set a season best by three seconds and gave the Falcons just enough points to edge Olympian.

On the boys’ side, Rancho Bernardo easily won its second consecutive Division 1 title, with Cathedral Catholic prevailing in Division 2.

Coronado’s girls won their first section title, thanks in large part to Hickey. Her best mark Saturday almost didn’t happen, and she nearly bypassed jumps after hitting 19 feet, 3 inches.

“I did 19-3, and I was like, ‘That’s pretty good,’” she said. “I was going to scratch; I was going to scratch all of (the rest of) them. My coach was like, ‘No, you should do your last ones just to do it.’”

Though it was slightly wind-aided, she hit a personal-best 19-10.50 (+2.2 m/s) on her last jump to put her in the No. 2 spot in the state under all conditions behind Silver Creek’s Jazlynn Shearer (20-1), and just ahead of Carson’s Jonon Young (19-8.25). It sets up an intriguing showdown at next week’s CIF-State Track Championship at Buchanan High’s Veterans Memorial Stadium in Clovis.

The time schedule put her in predicament Saturday. The long jump and high jump, which she won for the third consecutive year with a 5-6 clearance, were the first two field events of the day at 10 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., respectively, and she also anchored Coronado’s winning 400 relay (48.22) in Division 2 in the first track event of the day. The team, however, was not one of the top three overall in the event and did not advance.

Several hours later, Hickey, the defending champ in the 100, was outleaned by Madison freshman Aysha Shaheed to finish second. Shaheed ran a personal-best 11.84; Hickey ran 11.91.

“I think, honestly, it was the break in the between where I wasn’t doing anything,” she said. “I was sitting down, and I’m used to having my adrenaline and going back and forth. …

“At the end of my race, I didn’t have enough.”

The top three overall marks Saturday in each event advanced to Clovis, along with several athletes who earned at-large berths. On a cloudy and pleasant, yet windy day, impressive marks were not the norm.

San Dieguito Academy senior Kevin Ward came the closest to breaking a section record. He won the pole vault in 16 feet, 5 inches and nearly made 16-9 – he almost cleared on his second attempt before grazing the bar just enough to knock it down on his descent.

“The winds were so strong today, which really helps,” Ward said. “And you know, I had a fierce competitor – (Rancho Bernardo’s) Jacob Rice had jumped 16-3, beating me as a junior (last week). And I wasn’t going to let him beat me. I think that was the driving factor.”

The driving factor for the Torrey Pines girls came in the final event. Torrey Pines didn’t have to beat Olympian but it did have to run strong enough to stay ahead of the Eagles in the team scoring.

Turns out, they really had to run strong. Olympian’s team of Alexis Meeks, Alyssa Meeks, Adaeze Noble and Kolumbia Page ran a season-best 3:52.35 to win, allowing Noble (400) and Page (200) to add to their individual victories.

But Torrey Pines was right there, as senior Kate Thomas, junior Gloria Kalt, senior Ellie Flint and junior Jade Babcock-Chi ran their own best of 3:53.84, giving the Falcons enough points to edge Olympian, 74-71.

“We looked at the team score before this,” Thomas said, “and we knew we had to be up there with Olympian to win.”

The meet featured one other girls multiple event individual winner. El Camino senior Nu’u Tuilefano finished her San Diego Section career by double winning for the second consecutive season in the shot put (40-2) and discus (139-8).

La Costa Canyon swept the girls distance events, with three different girls winning the 800, 1,600 and 3,200. Junior Jessica Riedman won the 800 in 2:14.68 after giving senior McKenna Brown everything she could handle in the 1,600. Brown won in 4:53.34 and conceded she was battling a bit of a head cold … before later going out and placing second in the 3,200.

That event, though, belonged junior Kristin Fahy, who won easily in 10:25.99.

Perhaps the race of the day came on the boys’ side. With a last-second burst, Mt. Carmel senior Quoi Ellis repeated as champion in the 200 (21.19) by one-hundredth of a second over Madison junior Kenan Christon (21.20).

That was reverse order from the 100, when Christon won in 10.68 and outleaned Ellis by four-hundredths of a second. Ellis also ran the anchor leg of the Sun Devils’ 4x400 relay, where he was on the wrong side of the hundredth as Helix won in 3:21.86 to second-place Mt. Carmel’s 3:21.87.

Running in his final individual race on his home track, though, made that 200 win special for Ellis. It also puts himself and Christon in the state title hunt next week, as Ellis now has the No. 2 time in the state in the event.

“I got denied in my 100 and got second place, so I had to do it for the 200,” Ellis said. “My coaches said, ‘Don’t strive for anything else but the place. But I was striving for time, and when my teammate Kenan Christon – we’re not on the same team, but we practice together frequently during the offseason – gave me that push, we both came out with PRs.”

Bonita Vista’s Isaiah Labra won the 3,200 in 9:10.00. He and Cathedral Catholic senior Joaquin Martinez de Pinillos actually traded the lead in the race’s penultimate lap before Labra won and beat his personal best by six seconds.

Rancho Bernardo’s depth allow it to tally 115.5 points in the team victory, but it got just one individual winner with Josh Farmer in the 300 hurdles. Farmer also eclipsed his personal-best, winning in 37.81.

The section’s only double individual winner was Eastlake’s Jalyn Jackson. Jackson jumped a wind-aided 24-10 to win the long jump and then won the triple jump in 49-1.

And as he’s said all year, he’s still chasing 25 feet in the long jump and 50 feet in the triple.

“I saw the roll of the tape and I saw a ‘25’ flash, and I thought, ‘Oh, it was a big jump,’” Jackson said of his long jump. “That 24-10, I’m very proud … my goal is 25 still and 50 in the triple.”