Athletes break personal records at league finals

May 30, 2017 — by Christopher Lee and Elaine Sun

"Brutal" competition in CCS pushes everyone to their limits, but the team ends the season strong with many athelets such as sophomore Harman Chawla breaking personal records.

Track and field athletes finished their seasons recently, with one of them advancing as far as the CCS finals that occurred on May 27.

Junior thrower Paige Hansen had made it to CCS finals, but she did not manage to progress the finals of her flight, which is the group she is competing in.

“It could have gone better,” Hansen said. “But because I had a new personal best the week before I was expecting my numbers to be a bit lower.”

There had been 31 girls who competed in the CCS semifinals, and the top 12 made it to finals. There, one flight of 12 girls threw three times and the top six made three more throws in order to qualify for state.

At the CCS finals, Hansen placed 12th in discus with a distance of 86’11.” Earlier in the month, athletes participated in qualifying meets, such as the CCS Trials,  Santa Clara Valley Athletic Leagues and the El Camino League Finals.

Hansen, junior sprinter Jaijit Singh and junior sprinter and high jumper Riley Carter qualified for CCS trials, which occurred on May 20, and Hansen qualified for CCS finals.

“When you get to CCS, everyone is competing on a whole other level,” senior runner Celine Bellegarda said. “We're competing against people who will then move on to state because they're that good. So competition is brutal.”

Freshman Julia Hoffman set two personal records during SCVALs, which occurred on May 12. She raced in the 1600m with a time of 5:14.66 and 3200m with a time of 11.36.64.

Members of the 4x100m, freshman Emma Hsu, junior Chloe McGhee, Carter and senior Celine Bellegarda along with the members of 4x400m relays, Hsu, McGhee, Hoffman and Bellegarda, represented the school at SCVALs.

Saratoga High placed ninth in the 4×100 relay and 11th in the 4x400m.

Singh, freshman sprinter Jinghao Wang, junior distance runner Amit Nag, senior hurdler Eric Wang, senior hammer thrower Tristan Bush, junior jumper Alex Metz, senior sprinter and jumper William Liddle and Hansen also qualified for SCVALs.

Singh placed third in the 400m with a time of 51.21, Wang placed 15th in the 400m with a time of 54.29, Nag placed eighth in the 1600m with a time of 4:35.04 and 13th in the 3200m with a time of 9:57.51, Wang placed 13th in the 110m hurdles with a time of 17.69 and 300m hurdles with a time of 45.01, Bush placed seventh in the discus with a distance of 124’10,” Metz placed 11th in the high jump with a height of 5’6” and Liddle placed 13th in the high jump with a height of 5’2.”

On the girls’ side, Bellegarda placed 10th in the 200m with a time of 27.26 and in the 400m she placed 11th with a time of 1:03.02. In the 1600m, Hoffman placed seventh with a time of 5:14.66, a personal record. She went on to set another personal record in the 3200m with a time of 11:36.64, placing eighth.

McGhee placed 12th in the 100m hurdles with a time of 17.03 and in the 300m hurdles placed seventh with a time of 48.43, a season record. For the shot put, Hansen placed 10th with a shot distance of 28’-10.” In the discus, she placed fourth with a 108-0.200. Carter placed third in the high jump with a jump of 5 feet even.

One of their last meets of the season occurred on May 3: the league finals for the El Camino division. In this competition Mountain View, Santa Clara, Monta Vista, Fremont, Cupertino and Wilcox all fought for positions in CCS along with SHS.

Bellegarda placed second in the league for the 400m. Along with Hoffman, she qualified for SCVALs.

   Although the boys placed seventh and the girls fourth in league finals, many athletes broke personal records. Wang ran in the 110m hurdles with a time of 17.25, sophomore Harman Chawla ran the 300m hurdles in 50.71, Metz long jumped 18’18.5,” freshman Armina Mayya ran the 1600m in 5:46.99 and junior Valerie Yang leaped 15’11.5” in the long jump .

“The season was overall really amazing, thanks to our wonderful coaches and the amazing team,” Bellegarda said. “It's something I'll really miss.”

 
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