Track and field hopes to move up a division

February 4, 2016 — by Caitlin Ju and Kyle Wang

The girls’ team would like to have more members make it to the league finals and have more CCS qualifying athletes. “Though it is hard to tell so far, I see more going on to SCVALs,” junior Celine Bellegarda said. “The coaches are working hard to place people in the right events for them.”

Sport Name: Track and field

Coach: Archie Ljepava (head), Scott Bang (boys’/girls’ distance), Avery Gigoux (sprints)

Last year record (results in league/CCS): 1-4 (girls), 1-4 (boys)

2015 season recap: Three athletes made it to the CCS finals: alumni distance runner Steven Sum and seniors Vincent Faylor (sprinter and hurdler) and Tanner Zuleeg (shot put). Sum won the CIF Central Coast Section 2-mile event and the CCS 

Semifinals for the mile. Zuleeg placed fourth in the CCS Finals, and Faylor placed seventh in the CCS Finals.

Key returning athletes: senior sprinter Kimberly Chen, sophomore hurdler Chloe McGhee, sophomore sprinter Jaijit Singh, senior distance runner Matt Peterson, sophomore sprinter Clifford Yin

Key additions: junior sprinter Celine Bellegarda, freshman distance runner Isabella Tan

Star athletes: senior sprinter and hurdler Vincent Faylor, senior distance runner Stephen Law, senior shot putter Tanner Zuleeg

Key losses to graduation: Laura Cummins, Andrew Harter, Puck de Roos, Steven Sum

League: SCVAL League El Camino Division

Quote from coach Scott Bang: “I realize we are missing our No. 1 [distance] runner from last year, Steven Sum, but similar to cross country in the fall, there looks to be plenty of depth on the team, and lots of talent returning.”

Prognosis: The girls’ team would like to have more members make it to the league finals and have more CCS qualifying athletes. “Though it is hard to tell so far, I see more going on to SCVALs,” junior Celine Bellegarda said. “The coaches are working hard to place people in the right events for them.”

The boys’ team would like to move up to the De Anza division and also have more CCS qualifying athletes, despite losing the two top runners on the distance team. “It’s going to be a lot more intense, especially for the sprinting team,” junior sprinter

Ruchir Mehta said. “I expect we’ll be running hard and scoring [well].”

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