CHICO - Cool, mostly cloudy and occasional light showers greeted athletes as they descended upon Mel Jones track on the campus of Chico High School. A stiff southerly breeze would prove to be the most detrimental to sprint and hurdle races while more of a mixed bag for running distance events due to the presence of multi-story dorms situated across the street directly south of the track. Winds relented some as the meet progressed, but the conditions remained cool. Some of the better athletes in attendance chose to compete in a more limited way while others missed the meet entirely due to a scheduling conflict or personal preference.
Two races at the meet standout, the varsity girls 800 & 1600m. Both were won by Chico senior Taylor Wellersdick. The 1600m was run first. Top seeds were Wellersdick, the only runner in the field with a sub 5 mark (4:59.02), CORE Butte's Brianna Hayes (5:04PR), Lillian Hales-Yang of Davis (5:05PR) and Eleni Keriotis of Nevada Union (5:07PR). Wellersdick, leaving nothing to chance, immediately took the lead and was closely followed by Hayes and Hales-Yang through the opening 71 second lap. Taylor opened more of a gap by the time she passed through the halfway mark in 2:26. This advantage doubled during the penultimate circuit which also saw Hayes slip to third. A final lap in 72 seconds gave the Chico senior the win and a new personal best of 4:54.92. Hayes rallies coming down the homestretch to take second place (4:57.51) and leave Hales-Yang (4:58.10) in third. This constitutes the first time in Northern Section history that more than one girl breaks five minutes in the same race (or season, for that matter). Not surprising since prior to this year only eight Northern Section girls had broken five minutes, none in the same season.
Roughly a little over two hours later Taylor Wellersdick and Brianna Hayes would compete in the 800m. Joining them in the race would be PV sophomore Avery Hankins and NU junior Leah Krason. Hayes was the section 800m champion the previous year and the current section leader in the event. Wellersdick, had recently run a 2:15 800m, while Krason (2:17PR) and Hankins (2:20PR) were the next highest seeds in the event. Krason came into the race fresh while Hankins competed in the 400m an hour and half prior.
Hayes sets the pace in a relatively conservative opening lap 72 with Wellersdick, Krason, Hankins either on her shoulder or directly behind with the rest of the large field strung out behind. After passing the halfway mark, Krason accelerates into the lead and opens a couple meter gap going down the backstretch over Wellersdick & Hayes with Hankins another meter back. Krason would maintain her lead until about 65m to go at which point Hayes, on the inside, and Taylor, to the outside, matching strides finally begin cutting into her lead. The lead is gone with a couple meters to go and the pair sail by the Nevada Union runner to cross the line almost simultaneously. Upon video review, one sees Taylor getting the slightly better lean over Brianna to garner the win with Krason a half stride behind in third. A couple of strides later Hankins finishes. For these four, the last lap was significantly faster than the first with all running sub-68 second splits. While not record fast, the finish was about as exciting as you can get with the outcome not known until the results were posted online and on the track level stadium scoreboard.
Not surprisingly the sprint times were slow. No girls broke 13 in the hundred and no boys broke 11 seconds. The section leader in both the 100m and 200m coming into the meet, Ahmani Collins of Weed, was upset twice and by a sizeable margin in the longer race in finishing second. (It would prove to be the first and only time she lost in the section all year.) Besides Wellersdick, other double winners on the day include Enterprise's Aliyah Choi (200/400), U Prep's Asher Williamson (100/200), PV's Amarianna Sims (100h/300h), Chico's Luke Schabert (shot/discus).
The Chico girls topped Pleasant Valley 100 to 84 in the varsity team competition with CORE Butte a more distant third with 57 points. Chico girls also topped the Vikings in the JV competition 156 to 134 as they again finished 1-2, both well ahead of third place Davis who ended up with 73 points. Lincoln edged the Vikings by a point to take the varsity boys title 91 to 90 while West Valley was left in a not too distant third with 85 points. Pleasant Valley did win the JV boys title over runner up Chico 125 to 81 with Davis third with 68 ½ points.
