CHICO - Ideal conditions prevailed for this year's edition of the Chico Invitational held on Mel Jones Track on the campus of Chico High. Hardly any wind, abundant sunshine and seasonably warm conditions greeted athletes from the 37 schools attending the meet. Individual performances were exceptional considering we're only about half way through the 2025 high school track season.

Athletes from three sections (Northern, North Coast and San Joaquin) came to compete in either varsity or junior varsity divisions of the 13 individual and 3 relay events contested. Only the pole vault competition was missing because the Chico Unified School District doesn't have the facilities yet. Competitors and fans were treated with mostly sunny skies, barely a breath of wind while temperatures climbed into the middle 70s after starting the meet in the lower 60s. Although no wind instrumentation was available for the meet, it is unlikely any event was positively or negatively impacted by wind. Notable section athletes not competing at the meet were Pleasant Valley's Jackson Hein and Trinity's Jackson Poburko, both travelling to Southern California run at the prestigious Arcadia Invitational.

Pleasant Valley boys, hardly missed Jackson Hein who racing in SoCal as they topped runner-up Davis by 19 points, 81 to 62 with Chico and Las Plumas tied at 57 for third. Shasta girls, most dominate in field events, easily won the girls team title 97 to 68 over Chico with next best Davis accumulating 66 points for third.

The junior varsity division is mostly composed of freshman and sophomores, but the section recently ruled that non-competitive juniors and seniors can compete there as well. The meet schedule made two adjustments to the normal order of running events by conducting the short hurdles before instead of after the 1600m as four different hurdle height adjustments and two hurdle locations changes are needed likewise the JV 3200s were run mid meet following the 400m races (instead of running all 3200m at once near the end of the meet) to improve the overall meet efficiency.

Multiple double winners on the day. Las Plumas' Jayden Newkirk won both the 100m and 200m with times that were both personal bests and section leading. Further highlighting his performance at the meet, Newkirk also ran the second leg on the winning 4x100m relay team. Yuba City's Jewel Perry, a triple winner a year ago, was denied a third win on the day as freshman upstart Ahmani Collins from Weed comes from behind to edge the Honker senior in the 100m. Shasta's Jaiden Lynn was at her best in the field events, winning both the long jump and high jump while placing third in the 100m. Sophomore teammate Naia Kristoffersen won the triple jump and was runner up in both the long jump and high jump.

Anyway, not much doubt who would win the varsity girls 100m hurdles with the return of three time champion Autumn LaMontagne of Lincoln. Unsurprisingly LaMontagne won the event for the fourth time. More surprisingly was that she did not win the long hurdle race, something she had done the last two years. Instead LaMontagne found herself the runner-up to Hope's Iris Severne, a former distance runner and now the top ranked hurdler in the Northern Section.

Lincoln senior Jewel Perry, also coming back to Chico Invitational for the fourth straight year, found some competition this go-around. She prevailed easily in her first race, winning the 400m by nearly three seconds as she was the only one under 60 seconds. However she was edged by Weed freshman Ahmani Collins in the 100m 12.60 to 12.69 with last year's section champion Shasta's Jaiden Lynn a more distant third. She came back in her third individual event to smoke the field in her third race, 200m by running a personal best 25.39. Behind her Shasta senior Talyn Hanly, a winner of the 800m race only an hour earlier, ran a strong turn and solid straight away to hold off the 100m winner Oliver as both ran personal bests as well.

The varsity boys saw both races taken in dramatic style by Las Plumas senior Jayden Newkirk. In the shorter race, Newkirk runs the fourth fastest NS time ever (& school record to boot) in beating the second and third ranked NS sprinters, Foothill's Ryan McNally and Shasta's Nic Wilkes after running the second leg of the Thunderbirds winning 4 x 100m relay. He caps is day by again besting Wilkes in the 200m with another top time with the section's top 400m runner left in third in a race that saw the top 5 finishers all run personal bests.

Not to be ignored, Weed freshman Ahmani Collins, not only came from behind to win the 100m (12.60), but pulled the same trick when she anchored her team's winning 4x100m relay. Foothill junior Blake Lema, despite clipping a few hurdles along the way, came away with wins in both varsity hurdle races taking the shorter race with a personal best time (15.90) to hold off Gridley's Matthew Miskin (16.11). He didn't need his best to win the longer hurdle race.

At Mel Jones Track, some quality efforts were made. Most notably, and not without a little controversy, the varsity girl's 1600m more than matched its pre-race billing. CORE Butte's Brianna Hayes, Orland's Paulina Martins and Chico's Taylor Wellersdick (no. 1, 2, 3 ranked runners in the Northern Section) locked horns. They matched strides through 800m, then Martins takes control in lap three and stretches her lead to at least 20m over Hayes with 200m to go. It appeared she would cruise in for an impressive win over her closest section rival, but Brianna had other ideas. She came off the turn after having cut Martins lead roughly in half but it still seemed she would run out of real estate. However she would prove me wrong as she caught Martins with about a foot to go to maintain her section lead by a .04 second margin. (5:07.90PR, or 23 seconds faster than she ran last year). Martins stumbled and fell crossing the line and Hayes was initially DQ'ed for causing the fall but reviewing the race video exhaustion combined with maybe some inadvertent contact was more likely the cause and not any malicious intent on Hayes' part. Chico junior Taylor Wellersdick, although gapped by the race leaders after passing the midway point, finished a solid third with a time of 5:12.77. Wellersdick also placed third in the 800m to garner her second PR on the day with times that would have won both races last year.

Double winners among the field events include Chico's Magnus Nielsen who swept the weight events, taking the shot by over 4 feet and the discus by over 9 feet. Jaiden Lynn, a Shasta senior and possessor of one of the best long jump and high jump in section history, won both while placing a strong third in the 100m. Her long jump effort was the most impressive of the three as her mark of 18-0 won by almost a foot and a half. Chico's Magnus Nielsen, improving upon his performance at this meet a year ago, by doubling the number of wins as he claimed both the discus and shot put titles. The Panther senior wins were both by comfortable margins took the shot by four and a half feet and the discus by eleven feet.

Other local winners in the varsity competition were PV's Quentin Clarke took the 3200m, while the Chico boys picked up a surprise win in the 4x400m relay. Paradise's Jared Gourley only needed a clearance at 6' 0 to win the high jump.

In the junior varsity competition, Pleasant Valley topped the field for the boys while Chico girls nearly doubled the score of the runner up team Pleasant Valley (115 to 60.5).

Two more weeks of non-championship meets remain ahead for Chico and Pleasant Valley that include the Sacramento Meet of Champions, the West Valley Invitational and the Norm Mackenzie Twilight Showcase

(Post season note: The Chico Invitational was the second of three times that Martins lost to Hayes but the only loss at the 1600m distance. Meanwhile Hayes' loss in the 800m at the Chico Invitational was the only time she was beaten in the section at either the 400m, 800m or 1600m).