Ayla Granados has enjoyed quite a senior year of running. In the fall she won the CCAA individual title in cross country in front of a huge hometown crowd, and on the track she has produced a school record in the 1500, another conference title, and times in three distances that rank among the NCAA's best. On Saturday the Castro Valley native took another big step forward running the 1500m at USF's West Coast Invitational at San Francisco State. Although she only placed third overall, Ayla recorded a 4:21.62 mark, that smashed her existing school record, and ranks #2 in the NCAA (DII). It also places her within .5 seconds of the 16 deep All Time Division II list for the event. Of course Granados' run was only a part of the exciting day that was enjoyed by the handful of athletes that competed for Chico State in the city this weekend. I'll quickly recap the events below.

Women's 1500m: The women's 1500m field was the most talented group entered in Saturday's meet, which was great news for Ayla Granados who hoped to be pushed and pulled to a mark in the low 4:20's. CCAA foe Courtney Anderson was entered, as was Stanislaus' Marina Vorderbruegge (4:24 PR). Add 4 runners from Stanford, including Cami Chapus (4:17 hs best), and USF's Elena Burkard (4:21 PR) and you had quite a talented group of mid distance runners.

With a rabbit from USF taking the pack through early splits hovering just above a 70 second per lap clip, Ayla hit 800m in 2:22. A third lap of 69.9 saw the Chico athlete move up into a position at mid pack of the now 6-7 strong lead group. USF's Burkard made a strong push down the backstretch, and Anderson and Granados covered this surge. As the trio came off the final turn, they were clear of the field, and Granados surged to the lead. Just as it appeared that Granados might steal the race, Anderson found a gear much as she had at the CCAA meet the previous week. Burkard also had more in the tank, and the two slid by Granados for good. Burkard would finish first in a PR 4:20. Anderson finished 2nd in a new Stanislaus school record and DII leading time (4:20). Granados held on well finishing with a 50.0 final 300m split and 4:21.62 final time.

As previously noted, this mark lopped off an amazing 5 seconds from her week-old school record, and is an Automatic NCAA mark. It also places her Very close to the DII All Time performance list, where 4:21.1 stands as the 16th fastest time ever by a DII athlete. It is quite probable that this run ranks among the top 20-25 in DII history. It should be noted that Ayla's teammate Olivia Watt had been slated to run in the same race, but came down with an illness this week, and wasn't recovered enough to race. She will be back in action at the upcoming NCAA meet in Michigan next week.

Women's 1500m-Heat 2: While the entire Chico contingent was still abuzz over Ayla's huge school record, her teammate Lora James was doing some awesome work of her own on the same track. Running in only her first 1500m of the season, and with only a fraction of the season of training behind her (Lora was injured and unable to run until March) Lora hammered out 75 second revolutions one after another. Finishing 8th in her heat she had looked strong and closed well, but no one from the Chico group had gotten a watch started on her race. It wasn't until she had finished her cooldown that we were finally able to find her result (4:42 PR) online, to confirm what we all knew.. That'd she'd had an awesome run. With some consistency behind her going into next year, look out for James, who should be a great part of the '15 mid distance group that returns Bailey Henshaw and Olivia Watt.

Men's 1500m: Red shirting frosh Kyle Medina and teammate Alex McGuirk would toe the line in the men's metric mile. McGuirk never looked very engaged during the race, and would fade to a disappointing 3:59 final time. Medina followed the early rabbit for 400m (60.5) and led the pack through the second revolution (2:02) before Stanislaus alum Dawson Vorderbruegee took the front. During the third lap Medina unexplainably gave up 6-7 positions, so when he hit the bell at 2:50, he needed a 59 second closer to potentially break the 3:50 barrier. The frosh tried battling around the clump of runners that ran ahead down the backstretch, but the effort required to do this seemed to take away from his final 100m finish. Kyle would eventually finish 5th overall in 3:50.33 respectively. From my memory this mark stands as the fastest 15 by a true frosh in Chico State history. Kyle will now turn his focus on the USA Junior Championships to be held this July in Eugene, OR.

Men's 1500m-Heat 2: Germay Tesfai was a victim of poor race seeding on Saturday. The senior had hoped to challenge the 3:50 barrier on Saturday, but ended up being the top seeded athlete in the second heat with no one to race. After sticking with the pack for a modest opening 200m, Tesfai jumped to the lead by himself and led the entire remainder of the race. A final 1200m of 3:07 gave him the win (3:54 final time) but was well off his hoped goal.

Women's Steeplechase: Frosh McCall Habermehl would run her 4th barrier race of her early career after having PR'd in each run before. Unfortunately her Saturday race brought her first fall, and that might have been the main deterrent from her running another PR. After a pretty aggressive start that had her on the heels of the lead pack McCall clipped a hurdle on the third lap turn, and a subsequent tumble left her rattled and 10-15 meters off the position that she had enjoyed behind the lead group. To her credit Habermehl battled back nicely and eventually passed Alyssa Thiel (one of the Stanislaus runners that had finished ahead of her at CCAA's last week) but her eventual 11:18 time would fall 5 seconds shy of her PR.

Women's 800m: Bailey Henshaw was in the exact same position as her teammate Germay Tesfai had been in his 1500 earlier, going into the women's 800m. Her 2:11 seed should have placed her among the first heat, but athletes with formulated marks took the final spots in Heat 1, leaving her alone in the pursuit of a fast time in Heat II. Knowing she would need to carve a second off her seasonal best to make the NCAA meet Henshaw took the bull by the horns and raced through 200m in a frisky 30.1 split. The bell was reached in 62.3 and the nearest competitor (Courtney Anderson) followed some 30m behind. The third quarter of the race brought some expected slowing as Bailey hit 600m in 1:37. With 150 remaining Anderson (doubling back from her 4:20 1500) made her way past Henshaw. The gritty Henshaw held on tight while finishing second in her heat. Unfortunately her 2:12.33 wasn't quite the mark needed to advance to the big dance next week, but her final performance was an inspiring run nonetheless.

Women's 5,000m: Sophomore Quetta Peinado stepped to the line in the women's 5k with a PR of 17:34, but the gritty runner had a goal of running in the low 17:teens in mind. Recent training has gone well, and of course she had just podium'd last weekend in the CCAA 5k. Ayla Granados was assigned pacing duties as her post (1500) race workout. The goal was to start in the 83 second range per lap, and trim things down to 82's if all went well. Granados and Peinado did a masterful job of hitting their target paces as they hit early splits of 5:33 and 11:03 (3200). At 8 laps, Granados stepped off the oval and Peinado was now alone and within striking distance of Santa Clara's top distance gal Mary Kriege.

A 9th lap of 83 Quetta was making up some ground on Kriege and her goal, but the tenth lap brought an 84 split, and a fair amount of pain. Quetta hung tough and employed damage control as best as she could, hitting the 11th lap in an 85 second split. A 12th lap of 83 brought her up to and past Kreige, who immediately passed the tired Wildcat right back. With 150 remaining Quetta found a gear that wasn't to be matched, closing with a 37 final 200m, and hitting the tape fourth overall in a new 17:18 PR. This time stands as an NCAA provisional mark and just misses our All Time Top-10 list as well. Lindsay Nelson-Tollefson's marks that sit at #10 on both the 5k and 10k lists for CSUC will live to see another season. ;v)

Men's 5,000m: Steeple specialist Alex McGuirk was entered in Saturday's 5k as a post race workout after his 1500m. When the 1500 didn't go according to plan we weren't even sure whether it would be a good idea to do the 5k. After some thought Alex decided to do at least part of the 5k to get some more harder running in for the day. 12.5 laps and 14 minutes and 22 seconds later, Alex earned himself a spot on the NCAA start line for the 5k (in addition to his preferred barrier race of course).

Teammates Aaron Thomas and Johnny Sanchez would also record seasonal best marks as Thomas ran to a 14:40, and Sanchez-14:44. Germay Tesfai would double back from the 1500 with a gutsy 14:55, in which he went through 1600m in 4:35.

Wrap up: All in all it was another great day for the 'Cats. Following the 5k's the distance crew cheered on our men's 4 X 400 relay to an amazing 3:11 NCAA provisional time (#3 AT in Chico State History!). This season has been full of memorable performances from all groups on the team, and this relay run was quite a defining moment for our program. Now a handful of 'Cats will start preparations for the upcoming NCAA Championships to be hosted by Grand Valley State in Michigan. We have just learned that Isaac Chavez (10k/5k), Alex McGuirk (Steeple/5k), Barron Maizland (Steeple), Ayla Granados (15/5k), and Olivia Watt (15/800) will represent our school at the big dance. Of course a good number of folks from across the team have also qualified for the championships, highlighted by the 1,2,3 seeds in the Decathlon (JP Smith, John Brunk, and Teddy Elsenbaumer) and our first sprint relay in recent memory (women's 4 X 100m!). Hopefully more to come before we leave to Michigan if I can put something together. For those keeping track, we leave on Tuesday the 20th and competition starts on Thursday the 22nd and runs through Saturday the 24th.

Coach Hanf take on the meet:
Each year our track team sends one or two vans to a "Last Chance" meet the week after our conference championships, in hopes of having someone on the national qualifying list "bubble" improve their provisional mark. This year the University of San Francisco hosted the West Coast Last Chance Open at SF State. But due to graduation set up, the high jump and pole vault pits have already been removed. Since we had athletes in each of those events that were in need of boosting their qualifying marks we hunted for another meet. Coach Beeman ended up taking Michael Souza (HJ), Jackson Price (PV) and Dayne Gradone (5K) down to the Oxy Invitational in southern California. Adam Nikssarian made So Cal trip as well in hopes of increasing his point total at the Claremont Decathlon. Two vans filled with the men's 4 x 1, men's 4 x 4, several men's and women's distance runners and a long jumper made the trek to city by the bay.

Each year, over 90% of our athletes that attempt to qualifying at this meet come home empty handed, but we always get at least one out of the deal. This year's lucky winner was Michael Souza. We knew that his Provo mark of 2.08 (6'9 3/4") would not hold up, so he was on a mission to gain 1 cm of altitude. Mission accomplished. Michael placed fourth with a leap of 6'10 1/4" elevating him into the top 20 in the nation (he's tied for 18th with 3 others). The NCAA selects 20 athletes per event (not including relays or multi) so it looks like he's in! The declaration list is up and the accepted entry list will be posted on Tues. evening.

Nikssarian, competing in his 2nd decathlon in one week faced an uphill battle to improve his mark. After getting injured in the the first mee he was in rehab mode for most of the season. His score of 6574 at conference was just shy of a PR from his junior year but it was a huge accomplishment and earned him 2nd place on the podium. His dreams of joining his 3 teammates at the nationals was not met however, so he laced 'em up one last time. He was able to hit some season-best marks and a even hit a lifetime best of 15.11 in the hurdles. He just didn't have enough in the tank to get the required 6720 total. He settled with a 6435 score but earned a lot of respect from his coaches and staff for the gallant effort that he put forth.

Our trip to San Francisco was very fruitful! The biggest headline was from someone who had already earned her ticket to nationals...Ayla Granados....and she was awesome! On the heels of her CCAA success, where she broke the 1500m school record and smoothly won the 5K, Ayla crushed her own record and is now ranked 2nd in the country. Her time of 4:21.62 was nearly a 5 second PR! Quetta Peinado also ran a PR, lowering her 5K time to 17:18 and notching a provo mark. Sarah Hockensmith came to the meet needing to PR by 1cm to enter the top 10 list in the long jump and another 2cm to reach a provisional. She was just shy of that but posted a respectable leap of 18'4 3/4".

The big news for the guys was the incredible 4 x 400. Just a week earlier, the team of Nick Sloggy, Sam Peters, Lane Andrews and John Brunk dropped 3 seconds off our season-best mark and ran the 9th fastest time in school history (3:14.42). This week Ted Elsenbaumer and JP Smith were inserted back into the "starting lineup" for Peters and Andrews and the result was another 3 second drop...3:11.62! 3rd best in school history! Sakes alive...the team is now ranked 17th in the country. Sloggy opened up with a 48.8, JP carried the stick second and dropped a 47.9, Mr. Prez was third in 47.8 and Brunk brought it home with a 47.1 anchor leg. Smith, Prez and Brunk are already auto qualifiers in the deca but having the relay team qualify would get Nick into the meet too! Fingers crossed!!

Adding to the excitement was Steeplechase school record holder and ncaa auto qualifier Alex McGuirk. McGuirk posted a provo mark in the 1500 earlier this season and now added another provo mark in the 5K. His time of 14:22.33 is now 19th on the national list so he will be doing a Steeple/5K double in Michigan. These fabulous pictures were supplied by Kevin Brunk (father of John and Kristen):

Coach O