Racing at home under the lights is always a pleasure, and this year was no different as the 'Cats tackled the competition over a variety of distances at the Distance Carnival and Twilight Invitational. Given that our home meet is bookended on the calendar by Huge race weekends (Stanford/SF, Mt Sac/LA Meets) most of our distance crew, chased 1500 and 800m marks.

Without a doubt our athlete of the meet for the Chico crew, was senior Lora James (Shasta HS), who notched PR's at both the 800 (2:10.1) and 1500 (4:30.08) en route to her twin victories. Both marks have traditionally made the cut for the end of the season NCAA Championship meet, and each moves her up on the 'Cats All Time Top-10 lists. Her new two-lap PR lands her at #3 on the all time list, while her metric mile PR puts her at #6. Note: Lora has just been recognized by the Conference as this week's CCAA Track Athlete of the Week!

Highlights for the men included a 1:52/3:55 double from RS frosh Derek Morton and a 3:53 1500 personal best by sophomore Connor Fisher. RS frosh Michael Good also eclipsed the 4:00 mark for 1500 with his 3:59 PR while placing second in the Men's Seeded race on Saturday.

Distance Carnival (Friday)

Women's Invitational 800m: School record holder Bailey Henshaw did a superb job of leading her former teammates through 400 and 600m at PR pace. Lora James held on the best down the final straight hitting the tape in a huge PR, but narrowly missing breaking the 2:10 barrier. Both James and Watt hit NCAA marks with the effort!

Men's Invitational 800m: Derek Morton and Kyle Medina missed a nice opportunity to run a fast 800m on Friday night with teammate Michael Good providing the pace duties at the front. Neither went with their teammate and both regretted it after as modest 1:52 times were logged in a race that each hoped to run 1:50-1:51 in. Both fought hard down the stretch to place 2/3 though, and a lesson was learned.

Men's Steeplechase: RS Frosh Zachary Price missed most of Feb and March training due to IT band issues. Despite not being in race fitness yet, he managed to pull off a win in the men's steeple.

Women's 5000m: Hannah Dorman missed nearly the entire month of February in training and is just returning to race fitness. She would lead the women's 5k from start to finish with her 18:52 season opener.

Men's 5000m: Sophomore Kyle Medina ran the 5k for a post 800m workout and cruised to the eventual win.

Twilight Invitational (Saturday)

Men's Seeded & Open 1500m: Some nice Pr's for our youngsters in this one, with frosh Michael Good, Anuare Magana, Garrett DeLong and Jack Johnson in the men's Seeded race. For Good, it was his first sub 4:00 for the distance to chop off an impressive 8 seconds off his former best. In the men's open 1500m, true frosh distance guys Zachary Chamberlain, running his first foray at the distance, and Moshe McCarter ran to seasonal best 1500's.

Men's Invitational 1500m: Pacer Kyle Medina pulled the lead pack through some overly-frisky early splits of 28/43 before settling a bit too much in the subsequent laps. The quick early pace took it's toll on those who aren't mid distance trained and the slower than hoped middle laps left the group with too much to make up in their search for a sub 3:50. With 400m remaining Derek Morton seized the lead and pulled the pack through the following 200m, before being overtaken by Davis' Rushing and Goings. Down the final straight SOU's Jared Hixon found a gear that no one else could match, while he took the win. Connor Fisher notched a 3:53 PR, and Morton held on for 5th in 3:55. It wasn't pretty, but it was some much needed race experience for all.



Women's Seeded 1500m: Solid performances by Wildcat B teamers allow Danielle Oden, Julie Finn and Morgan McFaddin to all dip under 5:00. For Oden and McFaddin it was their first time under that barrier.

Women's Invitational 1500m: 4:22 1500m gal Olivia Watt would pace teammate Lora James to a hoped sub 4:30 1500m time. The two hit 400 and 800 splits just above the needed 72.0 per lap pace to achieve this mark, but the penultimate revolution was a 70 and James needed a low 71 to become only the sixth 'Cat to eclipse the 4:30 barrier. In what was to be her second bitter sweet finish of the weekend James narrowly missed another threshold by a fraction of a second, hitting the tape in 4:30.08. Teammate McCall Habermehl joined the sub 4:40 club for the first time with her 4:39 3rd place effort, and teammates Alex Burkhart, Haley Kroll, Camila Turati would take places 4/5/6, all with seasonal or all-time bests.

Up Next: The Distance 'Cats will head South for Mt Sac, Bryan Clay, and Long Beach Invites in their last big weekend of racing before the CCAA Championships. Stay Tuned!