Royals shine at Arcadia Invitational (April 11-12)
This past Friday a handful of San Marcos athletes had the chance to compete at the prestigious Arcadia Invitational. Temperatures hovered near the 90 degree mark as competition got underway. The Arcadia Invite is divided up into two parts, one being the “day/open meet” and the second being the nationally recognized “night meet”. Event winners from the day meet can earn themselves a spot in the night meet by being the overall winner. Each year, national records are either broken or performances come just shy of taking the national record, either way it is an amazing and motivational meet to attend.
San Marcos put together a 4×400 meter relay team consisting of Jamila Gamble, Chelsey Gonzales, Lisa Reed, Kalley Ridway. Their efforts placed them 7th overall in the open-day meet.
Hurdlers Jamila Gamble and Lindsay Pearson each raced in the 300 meter hurdles. Both lady Royals had to fight their way through three heats of 300m races. Jamila finished with a nice 7th overall place, with a time of 44.20. Attention was turned to senior Lindsay Pearson as she raced her heat and won with a time of 43.54. Her time was fast enough to be the quickest out of the three heats, which also qualified her to compete in the night-meet. In the night invitational, Ms. Pearson finished fifth overall.
Amongst the distance squad, we had a boys and girls relay team for the 4xmile (true mile). On the boys side we had sophomore standout Evan Bradford lead off for the Royals in a field boasting thirty two teams. Evan ran a tactical and bold leg cranking out a solid 4:37. Evan handed off to senior Mark Berquist, who went on to split a 4:36 leg. He handed off to senior Andrew Sanchez, who took off in his first lap and split a .62 and then came through the half in 2:18. He held on for a nice effort of 4:59. Our anchor leg was no other than that of senior Alex Corliss, who wrapped up a nice time of 4:29. The team ended up finishing in or around 10th place. The girls 4xmile relay Seniors Angie Afman, Bryn Kass, Juniors Sarah Terry and Kalley Ridgway all split between 5:32 to 5:35 for their individual legs. The lady Royals finished around 7th place in a field pushing 28 teams.
