Warrior Track & Field Smoke Signals -- We continue to enjoy a great start to our season filled with lots of excitement, fun, and success.  On Thursday, our Boys Varsity (72½-63½), Girls Varsity (86-49), Boys Frosh/Soph (77-59), and Girls JV (85-51) outscored Laguna Hills High School.

REVIEW:  This achievement keeps us undefeated for the season at the varsity level.  On Saturday at the Irvine Invitational we enjoyed some spectacular performances and registered many season and career bests while picking up some very nice hardware.

I thought the setting for the Laguna Hills meet could not have been better.  The weather was not windy (especially towards the end of the meet) and not too hot or cold, both teams competed hard and fair, the enthusiasm was high on both sides, the talent on both sides was obvious, and all of the athletes competed with heart and determination.  Our team demonstrated great support and enthusiasm for each other and our performances were impressive.  This is the school that had beaten us 2 of the past 4 years.  We enjoyed improvement in many of our events (relays, hurdles, sprints) and we keep discovering some new talented athletes each week.  Check and see how many RED marks appear on the results at our web page.   I hope all of you will have some special memories from this meet besides the many ribbons that were won.  The will to do your best for the team was obvious.  It is a will such as this that helps young teams progress quickly to the top level of their sport.  Let’s keep this attitude and go-get-them approach for the entire season.  You made us proud! 

Among the highlights from the Invitational:  Christine’s two records in the 1600 and 3200, Shane Berglas’ breaking 10 minutes (9:57.17) in the 3200 and moving into the 8th spot all-time for WHS, Gabby Scott’s first place finish in the 400 (57.66) and 7th on the all-time WHS list, Adam Garrett’s 51.83 in the 400, Amy Knowland’s 31’ 0” in the triple jump, Derrick Fleming’s PRs (4:44.76 in the 1600 and 2:08.52 in the 800), Shylo Lontayao’s awesome 54.84 in the 400, Cameron Mahon (10:39.76) and Andrew Burde’s (10:40.02) huge PRs in the 3200, Farzin Moridi’s 95’ 0” discus throw, etc.

ATHLETES OF THE MEET:  Christine Babcock (two meet records and part of 5 victories in the two meets) and Derrick Fleming (excellent marks and key points in our victory in the dual meet).  Field athletes are Bryan Barlow (two PRs this week) and Nicole Belz (9’ 0” on Saturday in the PV).  Rookies are Amy Knowland and Shylo Lontayao.

THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE:

1)  Mater Dei and Esperanza Track Meet on Saturday at Mater Dei High School (1202 W Edinger Ave, Santa Ana, CA 92707).  WHS to 405-N to Bristol and right to Edinger and right.  Go to the front of the school and turn right.  Parking will be at the main Parking lot on the east side of the school.

• As of today, the first events will be the Long Jump and Pole Vault at 9:00am.  The first running event will be at 10:00am.  Complete meet order of events.
    
• The field event bus will leave at 7:30am sharp.  The other two buses will leave at 8:00am.
      
• Spikes, food, drinks, sunflower seeds, glass bottles/containers, and gum are not allowed on the turf field surface.  Please abide by this request as we are the guests for this special track meet.
      
• Esperanza and Mater Dei will be great opponents for us to keep improving as a team.  We will use this meet to get better prepared for our league opener against Foothill on the following Thursday.  Expect strong competition and be ready to meet the challenge.
    
• We will use different events for some of our athletes to sharpen up our preparation for the bigger meets.

2)  Tuesday’s Varsity practice at Irvine Stadium at 6:30pm for warm up and 7:00pm for the workout.

3)  8 sweats shirts left!  $35 each in room E-208.

Have a great week of preparation for our meet and our league opener.

“Today we do what others won’t so tomorrow we can do what others can’t”

“Set your goals high because what a person accomplishes is in proportion to what they attempt”