For the fans who can’t tell the Piner Johnson twins apart the North Bay League track finals at Montgomery High on Friday probably looked like the same girl winning race after race.
First up in the girls 100 meter hurdles was Kyra who overcame a poor start to win easily in 15.18.
“It wasn’t a good start.” said Kyra, “I’m just now starting to run between the hurdles like it is a 100 rather than a 400.” Kyra returned in the 300 hurdles to win by a huge three seconds in 44.63.
Same was true for her sister Dezirae in the open 100 who came out of the blocks behind the field.
“It was one of my slowest starts.” said Dezirae, “I was worried for a second but by the 50 meter mark I felt relaxed and confident I would win.” Dezirae not only won the 100 in 12.61 but 200 in 25.94.
Maria Carrillo however won five of the six field events to easily take the team win at 165 points.
Carrillo’s Kathleen Durand pulled off a small upset winning both throws events. Durand has been the top discus thrower in the area all season and won easily at 119-11, but surprised the field in the shot put winning that one as well at 35-1¾. Teammates Laurel Sheppard won the long jump at 17-1¼ and triple at 36-1 and Siobhan Anderson dominated the vault at 11-6.
Carrillo’s Andrea Natoli was hoping to take on Santa Rosa’s Sadia Ibrahim in the 1600 but Ibrahim left that event wide open to her.
“I was expecting Sadia in the race and was prepared to try and beat her but I’m happy with the win at 5:20.97.” said Natoli. Natoli doubled back to win the 3200 race in 11:51.63.
Ibrahim had no trouble winning the 800 in 2:21.21 as did teammate Morgan Bertsch in the high jump at 5-3.
Teammate Darci Whyte took the one lapper for Panthers at 57.93, plus both relay teams won in 50.38 and 4:06.20.
It is hard to imagine a distance runner winning the 1600 meter run by almost a full straight-away and not feeling it was a good race but that is how good Piner’s Luis Luna is.
“I was focusing the whole week on this race but I’m happy just to win.” Said Luna, “There wasn’t as many people cheering me on each lap as in some past races so when I came by the first 400 in 62 seconds when I was shooting for 59-60 I just didn’t have it in me to push it today to run any faster.”
Luna went on to sweep the distances with times of 1600 (4:20.43), 800 (2:01.56) and 3200 (9:31.78).
Piner sophomore Connor Celeri destroyed his old best in 110 high hurdles to better the upperclassman in 15.43.
Rancho’s David Foreman has dominated the sprints all year and today was no different. After running neck-n-neck with the field through first half of the race Foreman opened up a gap at the end of the race for the win in the 100 in 10.97.
“I have nothing to complain about that race.” said Foreman, “Verses the others in the race I’m usually the one who slows the least at the end.” “I feel I’m better at the 200.” Which he also won in 22.14.
Foreman had already anchored his 400 relay team to a school record 43.05 time to move them to 9th All-Time.
Rancho’s Nick DeSoto won the long jump at 21-1.75.
Freshman teammate Justin Zinnerman won the high jump at 6-2. The only freshman in Redwood Empire history to jump higher is Cloverdale’s Craig McMillian from 1981 at 6-5.
Cardinal Newman’s Bryan Nunez won the 400 (50.00) with teammate Alex Roberts taking the triple jump at 42-4½ and Phil Wright the shot (49-6¾).
Santa Rosa’s Patrick Cunningham won pole vault at 12-6 with Ukiah’s Issac Brown taking the discus at 154-6.
Carrillo’s lone individual winner on the track was freshman Alex Netherda who won the 300 hurdles in 40.77.
The boys team point battle came down to the 1600 relay which Maria Carrillo won in 3:30.34 to give Carrillo 107 pts to Rancho’s 103 and Newman’s 102.