Track and Field Meet at SWAC Recap
Ella Nestingen
In this unique tri-meet against Chief Sealth and West Seattle, the Bulldogs pulled out a massive win, barely facing any competition and leaving the other teams quaking and wobbling in their tracks. Garfield did face some challenges though, including missing some of their top runners due to a basketball tournament, having a race stopped in the middle because of life-threatening thunder and lightning, having multiple events skipped or missing, and rematching against various West Seattle Wildcats that had barely bested the Bulldogs last time.
The meet started off on a rough foot with the Bulldogs placing a close second in the Women’s 4x200. They started off significantly ahead, but unfortunately, in the last leg’s final 70m, Garfield slowed, and West Seattle managed to pull into 1st. There was no 110 or 100-meter hurdles, so Garfield was able to reassert their dominance in the 100m dash, with Jacolby Cochran Jr and Tawaf Aboudou bounding far ahead of the competition. They placed 1st and 2nd respectively and less than 1/10th of a second apart. Then, there was an astonishing performance in the Women’s 100m dash, with Garfield claiming 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, where Shima True and Lucy Richardson finished 1/100th of a second apart and placed 2nd and 3rd.
This was followed by the Mens 1600m, in which Sam Cetron ran an incredible race, surging ahead of all other competitors and winning the race with a stunning time of 4:36.81s. At the beginning, Asher Morgan of West Seattle, who had previously bested Cetron in the first league meet of the season, pulled ahead with a fast start. But Cetron easily passed him in the second lap, and left him in the dust. Morgan attempted to catch Cetron again in the final 200m but failed to do so, and Cetron emerged victorious. After the race, Cetron had one final comment, “Asher Morgan; L. Fat L.”
In the Women’s 1600m, it was an extremely tight race for second between Garfield’s Ellie Wakefield and West Seattle’s Savannah Elger. Elger had sat right behind Wakefield the whole race, letting Wakefield take the wind while she quietly drafted. She attempted to sprint ahead of Wakefield in the final 100m, but Wakefield stayed ahead of her and finished 2nd, only beat by Annika Pettinger, West Seattle’s top runner.
In the Men’s 4x100 relay, the Wildcats and Seahawks didn’t even enter a team, so four Bulldog teams ran unopposed, with Jason Finley, Jacolby Cochran Jr, Kenny Gilbert, and Tawaf Aboudou finishing in 1st place with an incredible time of 45.66s. The Women’s 4x100 team of Terriona Camack, Shima True, Leila Gates, and Mylea Lexing was able to redeem themselves from their 4x200 and had no close competition, winning their race in 52.14s.
The Men’s 400m was an incredible race, with William Phillips Nichols winning and setting a new personal record of 52.62s. Nichols continues to get faster and faster, and with this time, he will now be 6th in the extremely competitive Metro League. Yaniyah Oliver placed 1st and set a personal record in the Women’s 400m with 1:08.21. Garfield ran unopposed and 4/5 runners got personal records.
In the 300m hurdles, Garfield clinched the top 3 places, with Finn Albright getting 1st with 42.56s. Albright is the #1 300m hurdler in the Metro League. However, not all had a shining performance. Just the day before this race, sophomore Jacky Liu had fallen over a high hurdle during practice and fractured his wrist. Despite this grave injury, Liu still decided to race on Thursday, taking off his wrist brace before going to the start line. Little did he know his race was going to be full of triggering surprises. According to Liu, “during the race I heard someone hit a hurdle about 140 to 170 meters in and that triggered the memories of the day before to start playing in my head.” Because of this PTSD, for the last 100m of hurdles, Liu had to slow to a walk and climb over the hurdles.
For the Women’s pole vault though, Wren McIntosh had an incredible performance, setting a new best vault of 9 feet. This places McIntosh as 5th in the Metro League and the #1 freshman. After the race, she said, “I feel awesome. Biggest adrenaline rush of my life.” She said that parts of the feat were difficult because of the wind, cold, and shin pain but she didn’t let it get to her. During the vault, “I ran. I jumped. I cleared it, but I almost knocked it over.” Afterwards, she yelled and celebrated this incredible accomplishment.
In the Women’s 300m Hurdles, Mae Robinson placed 1st and set a personal record of 50.97s. She said the race felt, “pretty good, although I stumbled over a few hurdles.” However, she didn’t let that get to her and just “kept running.” She could not describe the emotions that she was feeling at the race at all.
The Men’s 800m wasn’t really a competition, with Garfield’s Hayden Murphy finishing in 2:09.54, 30 seconds ahead of any of the other athletes. This was a very impressive performance for Murphy in the 800m. In the Women’s 800m, Anya Ceballos-Baliga made her official 2022 800m debut with a fantastic time of 2:37.11s. She placed 2nd and in the last 300m of the race, nearly caught Sylvie Gliko of West Seattle, but Gliko was able to pull out a strong kick and get ahead.
Garfield shined bright in the Men’s 200m, placing both 1st and 2nd, with Tawaf Aboudou in 1st at 24.46s, and freshman Julius Gillick following with a new personal record of 25.86s. In the Women’s 200m, there was also a 1st and 2nd place finish, with Takiyah Blue in 1st at 26.83s and Lucy Richardson in 27.38s.
In the Men’s 3200m, Kincaid Laverty and Charlie Kubiniec placed 4th and 5th. At the same time, the Women’s 3200m was an amazing race with the four Garfield competitors racing in a pack throughout the entire eight laps of the race. They switched off who was in the lead, and all finished within two seconds of each other in a clean 1st-4th place finish. Despite being double lapped by some of the Men running at the same time, they still emerged on top for the Women. Somehow, the results of the race were severely messed up in the processing, and Garfield’s times were partially given to West Seattle. This is in the process of being fixed.
After this great race, the clouds began to turn gray, and the weather turned for the worst. What started as a light sprinkle at the end of the 3200m quickly turned into a torrential downpour as the Men’s 4x400 went underway. Racers in just their singlets and short shorts were drenched head to toe and standing together in clumps, teeth chattering, and fingers blue and numb. Around halfway through the race, the sound of a thunder-strike could be heard, and fear sank it to all the athletes’ guts. Just as the Men’s 4x400 finished, an announcement was made calling for all athletes to run for cover as there was danger on the field. The results of the Men’s 4x400 were never released and the Women’s 4x400 was canceled. Thankfully, everyone made it out alive, with no injuries aside from some potential stage 1 hypothermia.
Overall, it was a meet with great races all around, and as the Bulldogs accelerate toward Metros, they hope to improve even more. Next week will be a trickier matchup against Bishop Blanchet, Nathan Hale, and Lakeside, but that just means more competition and excitement!
The meet started off on a rough foot with the Bulldogs placing a close second in the Women’s 4x200. They started off significantly ahead, but unfortunately, in the last leg’s final 70m, Garfield slowed, and West Seattle managed to pull into 1st. There was no 110 or 100-meter hurdles, so Garfield was able to reassert their dominance in the 100m dash, with Jacolby Cochran Jr and Tawaf Aboudou bounding far ahead of the competition. They placed 1st and 2nd respectively and less than 1/10th of a second apart. Then, there was an astonishing performance in the Women’s 100m dash, with Garfield claiming 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, where Shima True and Lucy Richardson finished 1/100th of a second apart and placed 2nd and 3rd.
This was followed by the Mens 1600m, in which Sam Cetron ran an incredible race, surging ahead of all other competitors and winning the race with a stunning time of 4:36.81s. At the beginning, Asher Morgan of West Seattle, who had previously bested Cetron in the first league meet of the season, pulled ahead with a fast start. But Cetron easily passed him in the second lap, and left him in the dust. Morgan attempted to catch Cetron again in the final 200m but failed to do so, and Cetron emerged victorious. After the race, Cetron had one final comment, “Asher Morgan; L. Fat L.”
In the Women’s 1600m, it was an extremely tight race for second between Garfield’s Ellie Wakefield and West Seattle’s Savannah Elger. Elger had sat right behind Wakefield the whole race, letting Wakefield take the wind while she quietly drafted. She attempted to sprint ahead of Wakefield in the final 100m, but Wakefield stayed ahead of her and finished 2nd, only beat by Annika Pettinger, West Seattle’s top runner.
In the Men’s 4x100 relay, the Wildcats and Seahawks didn’t even enter a team, so four Bulldog teams ran unopposed, with Jason Finley, Jacolby Cochran Jr, Kenny Gilbert, and Tawaf Aboudou finishing in 1st place with an incredible time of 45.66s. The Women’s 4x100 team of Terriona Camack, Shima True, Leila Gates, and Mylea Lexing was able to redeem themselves from their 4x200 and had no close competition, winning their race in 52.14s.
The Men’s 400m was an incredible race, with William Phillips Nichols winning and setting a new personal record of 52.62s. Nichols continues to get faster and faster, and with this time, he will now be 6th in the extremely competitive Metro League. Yaniyah Oliver placed 1st and set a personal record in the Women’s 400m with 1:08.21. Garfield ran unopposed and 4/5 runners got personal records.
In the 300m hurdles, Garfield clinched the top 3 places, with Finn Albright getting 1st with 42.56s. Albright is the #1 300m hurdler in the Metro League. However, not all had a shining performance. Just the day before this race, sophomore Jacky Liu had fallen over a high hurdle during practice and fractured his wrist. Despite this grave injury, Liu still decided to race on Thursday, taking off his wrist brace before going to the start line. Little did he know his race was going to be full of triggering surprises. According to Liu, “during the race I heard someone hit a hurdle about 140 to 170 meters in and that triggered the memories of the day before to start playing in my head.” Because of this PTSD, for the last 100m of hurdles, Liu had to slow to a walk and climb over the hurdles.
For the Women’s pole vault though, Wren McIntosh had an incredible performance, setting a new best vault of 9 feet. This places McIntosh as 5th in the Metro League and the #1 freshman. After the race, she said, “I feel awesome. Biggest adrenaline rush of my life.” She said that parts of the feat were difficult because of the wind, cold, and shin pain but she didn’t let it get to her. During the vault, “I ran. I jumped. I cleared it, but I almost knocked it over.” Afterwards, she yelled and celebrated this incredible accomplishment.
In the Women’s 300m Hurdles, Mae Robinson placed 1st and set a personal record of 50.97s. She said the race felt, “pretty good, although I stumbled over a few hurdles.” However, she didn’t let that get to her and just “kept running.” She could not describe the emotions that she was feeling at the race at all.
The Men’s 800m wasn’t really a competition, with Garfield’s Hayden Murphy finishing in 2:09.54, 30 seconds ahead of any of the other athletes. This was a very impressive performance for Murphy in the 800m. In the Women’s 800m, Anya Ceballos-Baliga made her official 2022 800m debut with a fantastic time of 2:37.11s. She placed 2nd and in the last 300m of the race, nearly caught Sylvie Gliko of West Seattle, but Gliko was able to pull out a strong kick and get ahead.
Garfield shined bright in the Men’s 200m, placing both 1st and 2nd, with Tawaf Aboudou in 1st at 24.46s, and freshman Julius Gillick following with a new personal record of 25.86s. In the Women’s 200m, there was also a 1st and 2nd place finish, with Takiyah Blue in 1st at 26.83s and Lucy Richardson in 27.38s.
In the Men’s 3200m, Kincaid Laverty and Charlie Kubiniec placed 4th and 5th. At the same time, the Women’s 3200m was an amazing race with the four Garfield competitors racing in a pack throughout the entire eight laps of the race. They switched off who was in the lead, and all finished within two seconds of each other in a clean 1st-4th place finish. Despite being double lapped by some of the Men running at the same time, they still emerged on top for the Women. Somehow, the results of the race were severely messed up in the processing, and Garfield’s times were partially given to West Seattle. This is in the process of being fixed.
After this great race, the clouds began to turn gray, and the weather turned for the worst. What started as a light sprinkle at the end of the 3200m quickly turned into a torrential downpour as the Men’s 4x400 went underway. Racers in just their singlets and short shorts were drenched head to toe and standing together in clumps, teeth chattering, and fingers blue and numb. Around halfway through the race, the sound of a thunder-strike could be heard, and fear sank it to all the athletes’ guts. Just as the Men’s 4x400 finished, an announcement was made calling for all athletes to run for cover as there was danger on the field. The results of the Men’s 4x400 were never released and the Women’s 4x400 was canceled. Thankfully, everyone made it out alive, with no injuries aside from some potential stage 1 hypothermia.
Overall, it was a meet with great races all around, and as the Bulldogs accelerate toward Metros, they hope to improve even more. Next week will be a trickier matchup against Bishop Blanchet, Nathan Hale, and Lakeside, but that just means more competition and excitement!