Track team finishes strong in last league meet of season

Annelise Doerr powers through the second curve of the varsity girls 400m dash.

Annelise Doerr (’15) powers through the second curve of the varsity girls 400m dash. Photo courtesy of Bob Nash.By Heather Carr, Staff Writer 

The Fountain Valley track team ended a strong season at the Sunset League Finals with outstanding performances from all levels and a number of qualifiers for the CIF Prelims.

Although the Barons fell short of obtaining an individual league title for a single squad, they were co-champions in both the boys varsity and girls frosh soph levels with Los Alamitos. Fountain Valley also shared the girls JV championship title with Edison.

Top performances included those from the pole vault team, where three members–Kasey Leong (’15), Megan Pollock (’16), and Langa Tran (’15)–all qualified for CIF.

“Our pole vault team did really well,” said Coach Jeremy Stahl. “We had three people qualify for CIF and I am very proud of them. We’ll work hard and see if we can get them to jump better.”

The distance team scored several PRs and was led by Natalie Grohmann (’15), who finished third place in the 800m run in a time of 2:12.12.

“The distance girls performed very well,” said Coach Crystal Reed. “We had a lot of improvements and we had one girl, Natalie Grohmann, qualify for CIF Prelims.”

As the day came to a close, the team participated in the 4x400m relay. Both the boys and girls teams fought hard amidst the rain to secure a spot in the top three, where the girls varsity squad finished  in a time of 3:59.84 and the boys varsity in a time of 3:29.61. Both teams were able to finish second overall in their races.

“Cold,” said Jennifer Nguyen (’16) when asked about the race. “I couldn’t see anything, but all I know was that I had to hand off. Ally [Bebout] (’18), our third leg, she went from third to first, then everyone else, they tried very hard.”

“Definitely fun, definitely wet,” agreed Phillip Bui (’15). “It’s a great way to end off the league season.”