TURLOCK, CA - It was another amazing CCAA Championship meet for the Chico State Wildcat tracksters. After months of hard work and diligent training, the men's team successfully defended it's CCAA title, crafting their 10th straight championship. The women's weekend was equally as impressive as the 'Cats notched a fourth straight victory. As always there were ups and downs along the way but overall it was another amazing championship weekend that we were fortunate enough to come out on top of. As always I'll do my best to describe the distance running highlights below.

Friday May 3

Women's 1500m Prelims: Junior Ayla Granados and frosh Jordan Walsh sailed through the preliminary round of the women's 1500m grabbing auto qualifying (top 4) spots into the Saturday final.

Men's 800m Prelims: With only the top 2 in each of the 3 heats guaranteed entry into the finals, the 800m prelims were a bit scary. If you ended up in a slower heat you HAD to finish among the top-2 in your heat. Dan Parker took the early pace in the first heat and kept things at an even 1:54-:55 pace throughout. Teammate Brett Douville (who had missed 8-10 days of running in mid April w/ injury) looked strong throughout, but couldn't close well enough to get by Stanislaus' Dean Alley. Unfortunately Brett's time would miss the final by just .2 seconds. Tony Palermini won Heat 2 with a 1:53 PR and looked great while doing it. Parker and Palermini would now turn their attention to the 1500m final on Saturday before they would contest the 2 lap final just 2 hours later.

Women's 800m Prelim: Freshman Olivia Watt entered the meet as a favorite to make the 800 final, but her draw into heat 1 with Stanislaus teammates Aman Hundal (top seed at 2:11) and Ufoma Egbikuadje seemed to be a larger obstacle than we'd hoped going in.

Egbikuadje and Watt shared the lead through a slow 72ish second first lap. The pace continued to dawdle around the penultimate curve, but Watt started to build momentum down the backstretch. As they hit the final turn Egbikuadje took the front, and teammate Hundal ran ½ stride behind and directly to the right of Watt. As the pace quickened down the final straight Hundal was quite content to allow her teammate to lead from lane 1, while she blocked a potential move by Watt, who in essence was waiting for something to open between the two so she could pass. The Stanislaus pair ran through the finish separated by only .01 and Watt would hit the tape just .17 in arrears, but the 2:20.9 finish time left all remaining heats a target for a possible time qualifier. As expected this time wouldn't hold up and a distraught Watt would have to watch the Saturday final from the sideline.

On a brighter note teammate Ayla Granados looked very controlled while winning the 3rd heat in a negative splitted 2:17 effort.

Friday Night: Women’s 10,000m Final: This year's 10k final was one of the better 25 lap fields assembled in recent years. Four of those competing had NCAA provisional marks including Chico's Paige Henker, Hillary LaBelle and defending CCAA champ Jessica Varela. CSLA's Sabrina Lopez (CA State XC Champ in HS) owned the fastest PR of the field with her 35:45 run at Mt Sac several weeks ago. From the gun it was evident that this would be another tactical outing, as none of the 16 runner field wanted to lead at actual race pace. Content with allowing the race to shorten in length before the racing actually began, the pack hit 1600 in 6:20.

The next 4 laps was covered slightly faster as Chico's Paige Henker edged to the front bringing the pace down to a 6:14. With Henker taking the third mile down to 6:12 a few casualties were falling from the pack. Henker would run a 6:00 fourth mile, and several more athletes fell from the field, but all 5 Chico women hung tough. Perhaps the most impressive story in the making was that of Jonah Weeks who has battled an awfully timed Achilles problem that had allowed only 5 days of actual running in the past month. With a LOT of cross training behind her and perhaps even more motivation (being a 5th year senior in her final race) Jonah hammered through the pain and hung with the pack. The fifth mile was covered in 6:02 and the front pack was reduced to 7 with all 5 Chico women still in the hunt.

During the final mile LA's Lopez took the lead and started to drop the pace substantially. The pack broke up and eventually it was a two woman race for the CCAA title between 2012 Champ (Varela) and the CCAA's fastest of the 2013 season. The pair dropped an 83 penultimate lap before Lopez hit another gear. A stride or two was lost by Varela as the two covered the penultimate turn. Jessie, no slouch when it comes to kicking in big races found her stride over the final 300m, and the soph would keep thing interesting over the final meters. Unfortunately Jess wouldn't be able to overcome the few second deficit and would have to settle for a runner-up finish to Lopez.

Teammate Hillary LaBelle who didn't make the CCAA line-up a year ago, made the most of her only opportunity by snagging an All CCAA third place finish. Paige Henker would rally nicely over the final meters, passing UCSD's top distance gal Chia Chang for 4th overall. Jonah Weeks would finish next, running almost as many miles during her 6th place finish as she had the entire week before the championships. Bekah Bahra would cap a 5 in top-7 finish for the 'Cats with her 2 point team scoring effort. All told the 10k 'Cats would tag 24 important points onto the early tally for the hoped team title.

Men’s 10,000m Final: As was the case with the women's 10k final the men's was a relatively stacked field as well. The best 10k PR in the field belonged to Humboldt's Austin Huff who posted a 29:37 during the 2012 season. Chico's Johnny Sanchez had just posted a 30:14 PR at Mt Sac, and Pomona's Ryan Carrell recently carved a 14:26 PR for the 5K. Germay Tesfai had run a 30:33 PR at Mt Sac, and UCSD sent a slew of sub 15 types to the line, including 3:55 1500m guy Kellen Levy. Rumor had it that Huff might take the field out at a sub 72 pace in search of a last chance NCAA qualifying effort, which unfortunately caught several of our guys off guard during the early stages of the race.

As Huff seized the lead 7 guys followed closely and the other half of the field almost immediately allowed this group of 8 to run away from them. Two Chico runners, Dillon Breen and Rogan Meza fell victim to Not going out with this front group, and a large gap quickly formed between the front group of 8 and the trailing group of 7. The first mile was reached just under 5 minutes by the leaders and the second group ran about 13 seconds back. The lead was traded for most of the race by Humboldts Huff and Pomona's Carrell. With 12 laps covered in 14:59 the lead pack was still in tact, but there were several who were in obvious pain and were stretching.

Realizing that they'd made an error in tactics in the first mile, Breen and Meza led the chase pack in trying to keep close enough to the lead pack to hopefully gather some of those who might fall from the pack ahead. By the 8k point, the lead pack was down to 4 with Chico's Johnny Sanchez looking controlled within the group. Tesfai had fallen from the pack and was grinding away trying to maintain a top 6 finish. Rogan Meza had left the chase pack behind and was making up valuable meters on Humboldt's Joseph Ostini who represented the final point for team scoring. The lead quartet covered the surges of one another, rolling laps 20-24 in splits of 71.1, 74.4, 73.1, and 70.0. With 1 lap remaining it looked as though any of the four could come home with the title.

Now in studying PR's more closely it appears that UCSD's Kellen Levy's 3:55 1500m PR came in handy over the other three as the Triton hit a quick gear at the bell, gaining a stride on the other three. Sanchez, who's become faster and stronger this season, shifted hard, as did Carell and Huff. With 200m to go all 4 ran within a second of one another and Levy maintained his short lead from the front. Levy's jump proved to be the deciding moment of the race, as no one would catch the inspired senior who had never stepped foot on the CCAA podium before. Johnny Sanchez would put his new 2:00 800m speed to good use while hitting the tape just a few tenths ahead of Carrell, who would manage a similar deficit over Huff, who would have to settle for a fourth place effort. All four had covered the final lap in 61 seconds or less, in what was a Very exciting conclusion to Friday's course of action.

 
Saturday May 4 (Finals):

Women’s Steeplechase: The women's steeple final brought every emotion possible, which of course was an interesting way to start the final day of competition. On paper the 'Cats had the top two seeds, with two time defending champion Amy Schnittger (10:25 PR) and Natalie Galvan (10:57 PR) leading the way. Stanislaus' Denali Foldager held a PR of 10:47 from last season, but had only posted an 11:03 seasonal best coming into the CCAA race. Chico's Hayley Swanson, a master tactician and pacer, stood as the fourth seed, but there were 3-4 others who had run within 10 seconds of her 11:10 PR. This would be an interesting race for sure.

The goal for the 'Cats was for Schnittger to lead teammate Galvan at an even 87ish lap tempo, hoping to keep Galvan near PR pace, while also making it an honest enough pace to dispatch any hopeful competitors. For 7 laps this plan worked almost to perfection as Schnittger and Galvan moved their way from 4/5th place at 600m, to the lead by 1200m. Predictably Foldager followed closely for about 4 laps, before she started to peel off the honest pace. Given the 85 degree temps and prevailing North winds, it wasn't an easy day to race any distance race on Saturday. The steeple field realized this over the final 3.5 laps. During the fifth lap Galvan started to fall from Schnittger's pace, but with Foldager falling back at an even more rapid pace, the 'Cats looked very good for a 1-2 finish.

Senior Hayley Swanson has always been tough and methodical with her racing, and these two qualities saw her move up from 8th in the early going, into a small chase pack of three with 2 laps remaining. During the penultimate lap Swanson made her way ahead of the other two chasers, and now with 600m remaining, Chico runners ran safely in the top 3 spots. Although Galvan looked a bit ragged (due to the hot conditions) she definitely had enough in the tank to hold on to the second spot. As I stood at the run-up to the final water jump Amy ran by comfortably en route to her third straight CCAA title.

Galvan, although tired,followed only having the water jump and the final barrier to clear before taking second place. As my attention shifted to helping Hayley stay ahead of SF State's hard charging Paxton Cota I hadn't noticed that a bad accident had occurred during Galvan's final water jump. As Swanson landed in the water she had to run inside of an alert official who stood partially in the water, protecting Galvan who had landed awkwardly and re-injured a previously surgically repaired knee. Athlete after athlete took the final jump while the official stood over Natalie, who cried in pain and frustration, not able to get up and finish the race. After nearly all competitors had taken the final water obstacle, the official moved Natalie to the infield next to the track.

Schnittger would go on to win her 3rd straight title and senior teammate Swanson would indeed hold off Cota for 2nd, but everyone's thoughts were with Natalie. Thankfully Natalie was able to walk off the track to the training facility with the help of our trainer, but the prognosis doesn't look good from post weekend evaluations by our staff. The extent of the injury won't be known for a few weeks after an MRI can be done.

Men’s Steeplechase: The men's steeple final thankfully went to form without any unexpected problems for our only competitor. Sophmore Alex McGuirk who placed 2nd in the 2012 steeple final behind senior teammate Miles Dunbar entered the race as a heavy favorite with his 9:06 PR and looked very bit as good as advertised en route to an easy victory. The plan for Alex was to run with the pack for 3-4 laps before edging away from the field as he felt he needed to in order to secure victory. The smooth hurdling McGuirk did just this, running the first 3 laps at just under 80 seconds per lap, before notching the pace down into the mid 70's per lap. The injection of pace stretched the field and soon Alex ran alone en route to an eventual 9:37 winning performance.

Women’s 1500m: Chico's Ayla Granados went into the weekend with the fifth best 1500m seed time (4:35) in the conference, but with her eyes set on a podium finish at the least. With 2 of the top 3 runners in the NCAA (DII) in the field, this wouldn't be an easy task. CSLA's Lisa Ohberg has a PR of 4:25 and Stanislaus' Marina Ghabour 4:24. Pomona's Liz Hurerta has run 4:33, and her teammate Tiffany Dinh has Pr's of 4:35 for 1500 and 16:50's for 5k. Not to be lost in this list of All Stars was Chico's RS frosh Jordan Walsh who ranked #9 on the pre-race list, but had her sights set on a PR and a hopeful Top-8 finish that would earn points toward the team's goals.

Given the hot and windy conditions, the opening lap that was covered in 78 seconds was fairly predictable. A second lap in the 79 range, had the crowded pack a bit antsy and as sometimes happens, an athlete stepped on Ghabour's heel just as LA's Ohberb began her move to the front. As Ghabbour somersaulted through the pack and women hurdled the startled athlete, the pace heightened and Ghabbour bounced to her feet at the back of a pack that was now in full flight. Neither Chico runner was affected by the spill and Granados jumped on the move running a 72 penultimate lap, with most of the pace coming in the 300m leading to the bell. Ohberg, who has 2:11 800m speed had 1-2 seconds on Granados and Pomona's Huerta with 400m to go and the senior from CSLA would take the win with relative ease. Granados won the 400m footrace with Huerta with a 67 second final revolution for second place. Jordan Walsh ran a strong race over the final stretch to take home that 8th place finish and PR that she'd hoped for as well.

Men’s 1500m: The men's 15 final was much the same as the women's with no one wishing to take the front of the pack and press into the wind. The result was a 2:18 800m split, which of course had all 12 athletes running within a tight and anxious lead pack. It was Pomona's John Carrell that moved first, and now the race was on. Predictably Stanislaus' Dawson Vorderbruegge a 3:48 guy, covered the move. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that the next person to commit to going hard from that far out was Chico's 5k/10k specialist Dayne Gradone, who in poker terms was "all in" from 650m to go. Dayne would cover the 300m from the 800m point to the bell in 44, and during that time moved into the 2nd position, as Vorderbruegge had passed Carrell. With the 6'2 Stanislaus standout striding out to an eventual victory the 5'7 Gradone turned over the wheels at a rate that he hasn't all season. Unfortunately for Dayne, Humboldt has a 4:00 HS miler on their roster and in the final 150 the long striding Jantzen Oshier made his way up to and by Gradone. Following the long striding Oshier up through the field though, was Chico's Dan Parker and Anthony (Tony) Palermini. Oshier would hit the finish second overall, and Gradone would hold on for third. Parker and Palermini would claim the next two spots and the trio would rake in 15 valuable team points with the 3,4,5 finish.

Women’s 800m: True to form on the day, the women's 800m final would go out at a pedestrian pace as the other distance races had as well. With the pack hitting 400m in 72-73 Chico's Ayla Granados made a gradual move down the backstretch to put herself even with the lead. With 150m remaining Granados ran even with pre meet favorite Hundal and just ahead of 2:12 gal Lorato Anderson from UCSD. Down the final stretch Anderson and Hundal edged ahead of the doubled Granados (they were both only running the 800m in the meet). Granados still fought valiantly to the line giving up 1 second to the eventual champ Hundal over the final 100m. Anderson would hold on for second, and Granados would enjoy her second podium finish in 2 hours with her third place effort. 2:11 runner and 2011 CCAA Champ Kaylie Belk would finish 5th in this tactical final.

Men’s 800m: The men's 800m was a relatively open race on paper minus the 1:50 credentials of hometown favorite Terrance Ellis who was only entered in the 800m. Both 'Cats who had made the final would be doubled back from the 1500 just 2 hours earlier in the afternoon. From the gun Dan Parker and Tony Palermini would fold into the back half of the 8 man field waiting to see how the race might unfold ahead. At the 500m mark yours truly was worried because neither 'Cat ran among the top 4 overall as Parker hovered at around 6th position and Tony just behind. Managing their energy well and hammering through the final 200m, Dan Parker moved into second overall coming off the final turn, and Palermini would follow, eventually landing in the 3rd spot and onto the podium in the final 50m stretch. Toss another 14 points onto the team total!

Women’s 5,000m: Nearly the entire women's 5k field would be doubling back from previous events. Jonah Weeks volunteered to get the initial pace going at an 86 second per lap clip, to hopefully put some of our opponents on their heels a bit. After 2k of leading Jonah stepped off the track and almost immediately CSLA's 16:20's performer and CCAA 1500 champ Lisa Ohberg would grasp the front, taking the pace almost immediately into the low 80's. The big surge blew the pack up and now the race was truly on. The 'Cats women did a great job of executing the final 3k with Amy Schnittger and Sara Mikesell working up from 6th/7th, to an eventual 2-3 finish. Sophomore Jessica Varela bounced back nicely from the 10k the evening before finishing 6th. Paige Henker and Hillary LaBelle would give the 'Cats 5 of the first 10 finishers. With a good team lead going into the event, the 17 points earned would be a nice exclamation mark on what was a great meet four our women's team. Amy Schnittger's 2nd place finish was her second Double-Podium finish in as many years in the same events. As most understand, the steeple/5k double is very difficult and Schnittger managed this as well as any that we've had in previous years. This bodes well for her chances at the upcoming NCAA Championships when she tackles the fastest steeplers in the nation.

Men’s 5,000m The men's 5k has been a source of pride among Chico State distance runners for a long time. In fact a Wildcat distance runner has won this race Every year since 2002 when Tyler Graff led a 1,2,3 finish over UC Davis' best. Graff would go on to win 3 straight CCAA 5k titles, and names like Scott Bauhs and Beau Rogers have helped this streak along. Now in 2013 it was appropriate that Anthony Costales would win his third straight CCAA 5k crown leading his teammates to another 1,2,3 finish. Knowing that Stanislaus' Dawson Vorderbrugge (the 1500m champ) would be doubling back, it was obvious that the pace needed to be fast enough to shake the speedsters off the pace early. Thankfully Dillon Breen and Germay Tesfai agreed to provide a solid 71-72 clip per lap from the front, which by 3200m did the trick in dispatching everyone except the 'Cats top-3 Anthony Costales, Adrian Sherrod and Isaac Chavez. Upon Tesfai's departure Costales sailed off to the eventual title with a sub 4:40 for the final 1600m. Chavez and Sherrod did enough to land safely on the podium in 2nd and 3rd. Dayne Gradone sailed by Vorderbrugge and several others over the final 500m while claiming 5th place. Johnny Sanchez would give the 'Cats 5 of the 8 scoring places. The thirty points scored sealed what was already an impending victory for the 'Cats and put a nice stamp on the tenth straight team title.

Wrap-Up: This weekend's titles were a product of much more than the solid racing of our distance team. In fact I'm guessing the Chico distance runners might have scored fewer points this year toward the titles, than in any recent championship. Much of this has to do with the improvements of our conference in the distances, but what I'm trying to relay is that the rest of the track team also had one heck of a weekend in Turlock. Unfortunately I don't have the time to share all of the details. I'll link the full results below so you can check out just how well balanced this year's titles were.

Next up: With just 1 weekend left to improve NCAA qualifying marks, a handful of 'Cats will journey up to Salem, OR to tackle the West Coast Invitational, hoping for the same magic that gave our 3 athletes that competed there a year ago such big PR's. Another small group will journey out to Colorado to start the acclimatization process for the upcoming NCAA Championships which again will be held in the thin air of Pueblo, CO. The Lubieniecki Family has once again invited us to be their guests in the week leading up to our team's arrival into Denver for the NCAA meet. Fingers crossed on a great Last Chance weekend for the 'Cats...

A few words from Coach Hanf:
Still waiting on Coach Hanf meet highlights...However Robin Hannah, who improved over 600 pts from a year ago, wins the heptathlon in school record performance (5037). She also ran a leg in both relays, high jumped, and just missed out on making the 200 finals.

Kasey Barnett PRed to win the pole vault winning on fewer misses over teammate Kelly Gundert who also PRed. Barnett also won the long jump, took second in the 100 and ran a leg on the 4X100 relay that took third and scored in the triple jump. Kasey was named the CCAA Field Athlete of the Year.

Aimee Rogers is a double winner in the hurdles, and anchors the 4X400 relay that took 5th. Brooke Shepard wins the shot and takes 4th in the discus.

J P Smith, Jordan Alford-Helems, Nick Sloggy and Josiah Damaris Greer give Wildcats huge lift with spectacular win in the short relay, helping the men's team overcome a slow start in the meet. Alford-Helems also placed 2nd in the 100. Hakeem Dyson resets his school record in winning the 110-meter hurdles. Theodore Elsenbaumer placed third in the 400 hurdles, 2nd in the high jump and was named CCAA newcomer of the year. J.P. Smith, saving his decathlon duties for nationals, took third in the short hurdles and third in the long jump.