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Left Image: Foreground, Mariah Richards-Maynard, right, and Jonika Bakerm race winner. Background, Aundrea Yancy, blue stocking, and Aysia Smith.
Right Image: From left, Jonika Baker, Mariah Richards-Maynard, Aysia Smith, Jasmine Waters.
The West Los Angeles College women’s track and field team has won the Western States Conference championships for the fourth consecutive year.
This is the longest winning streak achieved by any women’s team in the 33-year history of the Western State Conference.
The score reflects the dominance of West’s women. Compiling 167 points, they finished far ahead of Ventura and Glendale who tied for second with 111.
That is only the first accomplishment.
For the sixth year in a row, West’s men’s and women’s teams won the combined title. In their competition, the men were runnersup to Glendale, 158 points to 151.
Sophomore Jonika Baker was one of West’s stars, winning the 400 hurdles and the 100 hurdles, followed by teammates Mariah Richards-Maynard, Susana Usher, Aundrea Yancy and Aysia Smith.
In addition, Ms. Baker posted two third-place finishes in the 100 and 200 meters.
Oh, yes, and she ran leadoff leg on the victorious 4×100 relay. She teamed up with Ms. Richards-Maynard, Ms. Smith and Jasmine Waters to run 47.06, the top time in Southern California.
Not to be outdone, Ms. Smith won the triple jump with a bound of 37 feet, 11.5 inches, surpassing teammate Ms. Yancy by less than 2 inches.
The pair later locked up in the high jump, this time with Ms. Yancy placing first, 5-foot-4. State leader Shadonna Hunter won the long jump and was runnerup in the 100 meters as the Lady Wildcats swept the jumps, hurdles, and relays in route to a 56 point victory in the 12 team conference which is the biggest in the state.
The men were led by hurdler Darien Richardson (110 hurdles, 400 hurdles) and discus thrower Christopher Walker, who both won individual conference titles. Mr. Richardson led a 1, 2, 4, 5 finish by West in the 110 high hurdles along with Najee Williams, Lawrence Mendenhall, and Jurnee Gibson.
Later, Mr. Richardson came back to win the 400 hurdles in 53.88, and run a leg on the victorious 4×400 relay along with Will Lacy, Franz Palacio and Alex Amankwah, running 3:15.99.
Mr. Palacio and Mr. Lacy teamed up with Davion McGee and Kenneth McDaniel to win the 4×100 relay in 41.57 as the West men and women swept all four relays on the day. Individually, Mr. Palacio placed third in the 400 at 48.37, fourth in the 200 and sixth in the triple jump.
Mr. Lacy placed third and fourth in the 200 and 100 meters.
Perhaps the most impressive performance was by Mr. Amankhaw who had two second place finishes in the 1500 (3:54.59) and 400 (48.17) and was third in the 800, all within an hour. The national leader over 800 meters will drop the 400 and 1500 event for Southern California to concentrate on his specialty.
The top six finishers in each event qualified for the Southern California Prelims on Saturday at Antelope Valley College. West, ranked seventh in the state on the women’s side and 10th on the men’s side, had 13 women and 14 men qualify for the SoCal meet that starts at 9.
For complete results, see www.gocollegetrack.com
Ms. Long-Coffee may be contacted at Longcofm@wlac.edu
