REVIEW:  It’s hard to figure out team scores since Esperanza (missing all the field events on the boys and throwers and PV on the girls’ side) and Murrieta Valley (missing distance runners) seemed to be missing some of their athletes.  The unofficial scores for the girls were:  WHS (54), Esperanza (40), Murrieta Valley (40), Mater Dei (27).  For the boys:  Mater Dei (70), Murrieta Valley (37), Esperanza (32), WHS (24).  The top performances for us included Christine Babcock who ran the fastest time in the State thus far this year and the 2nd best ever in WHS history in winning the 800 (2:12.30).  She also won the 1600 with the top time of the week in the State for dual meets.  Kyle Wolff ran an excellent leg (as did Margie Strong, Cassie Stanislaw and Chelsea Hilliard) in the 4x100 to hold off Esperanza’s big gun and secure the victory for WHS with our season best time.  Kyle also won the 300 LH with a PR and ran in the 58s and finishing 2nd in the 400.  Clarissa Lara won her first ever varsity race in the 3200, Cassie Stanislaw jumped 5’ 2” to tie for 2nd in the HJ finished 3rd in the 400 and anchored the 4x400 Relay team that ran a season best time (Wolff, Strong, Babcock were the other three runners).  The boys’ 4x100 Relay (McCormack, Keimach, Belz, Herrick) ran the best time of the season (45.21), Conrad Wozniak got back in competition after his illness and finished 2nd in the 1600, Victor Sine continues to perform well for us as he finished 2nd in the 110 HH and 3rd in the 300 IH, Scott Belz saw his first individual action this year and placed 3rd in the 200, Derrick Flaming registered a huge PR in the 1600, Julie Walton continues to progress nicely in the hurdles, Bryan ten Bosch ran under 5:00 in the 1600 again and enjoyed a PR in the 800, Adam Garrett turned in the fastest time in the 400 for the entire team, and Tim Pham and Michael Callahan keep turning in impressive performances as they are getting closer and closer to the varsity level.

This meet brought to a close the pre-season for our team.  We have made progress in many areas with our team and on the girls’ side, we are pretty ready for the league competition that will start this week.   On the boys’ side, we still have many questions remaining to be answered for league competition.  Some of this is due to health (we have just about everyone competing pretty healthy finally), some of this is due to lack of consistent hard work, some of this is due to lack of passion to do well, some of this is due to lack of mental concentration and effort, and some of this is due to immature behavior.  The “funny” guys on our squad are getting too many laughs for us to be a competitive team.  In some cases, the coaches’ optimistic talk about our talent seems to have been misinterpreted to mean that “we are good already and all we have to do is show up and we will do well”.  Some of our athletes are happy to just be on the varsity team and do not make the effort needed to produce points for our team.  On Saturday (under some pretty good competition and weather), we did not produce the impressive marks we should have produced.  In fact a lot of them were far off of our season best.  Not only did we not match our season bests (under tough competitive conditions), we performed worst than our best.  This is a problem that needs to be fixed.  We need the team leaders to not only demonstrate toughness and consistency on their own performances, but to also step in and stop the nonsense that comes up.

ATHLETES OF THE WEEK:  Marjorie Strong enjoyed a productive day of running on Saturday and has been very consistent and competitive thus far this season.  Victor Sine scored well again for the team on Saturday as he has all season long.  Victor gives us excellent leadership as well.

THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE:

1)  League Dual Meet on Thursday at Foothill HS:  (WHS to Culver and right; to Irvine Blvd and left; to Newport Ave. and right; to Dodge and left.  The school is on the right and the track is on the west side of the school.)

      a)  The buses will leave at 1:30pm.  You will be dismissed at

           1:20.  Same procedure as before (dress at lunch in

           school-issued and color uniform or at home and be on

           the bus right away).  To make attendance-taking easy,

           you will ride on the bus by alpha order.  We will give you

           the break down when its time to board the buses.

      b)  This is our first league meet of the season and I do not

           have to tell you how important this is for our overall

           goals as a team.  Additionally, Foothill has been a great

           opponent for us.  We have had some very competitive

           and close meets lately.   I expect us to come away with

           two victories from this meet even though we are not

           favored to win.  I have a lot of confidence that the

           team that will compete this week for the Warriors will be

           focused, determined and dedicated.  A lot of our events

           will be close and I want to think that we will prevail on the

           close events, take care of our strong events and not get

           shut out on their strong events.  It will take a no-nonsense

           team to pull off these victories and I believe that we will

           have that team show up for this meet.

      c)  Entries will be posted on Wednesday.

2)  Saturday Practice at 9:00am at Irvine HS for varsity-level athletes (this includes many frosh/soph athletes) and any other athlete interested in progressing to the varsity level.

3)  Practices will be regular this week even though rain is mentioned as a possibility (including our Tuesday evening one at Irvine HS).

4)  New Uniforms will be available on Wednesday.  Bring in your old uniforms and exchange them for new ones.

5)  Parent and athlete sweats are still available.  Please bring in the $35 to room E-208 and pick one up before they are all sold or your sizes run out.