C.Oaks Girls Win 3rd Straight D-IV Track Title

Cosumnes Oaks High School’s girls’ track and field team needed only eight athletes, two of them seniors, to win the Sac-Joaquin Section’s Division IV championship for the third year in a row.

Once again it came down to the 4X400 meter relay for the Wolfpack to claim the team title with 74 points. Vista del Lago was second at 70 points while Oakdale was a distant third with 57 points.

The event was held at Sierra High School last Thursday.  

The Cosumnes Oaks H.S. Girls' Track team

The Wolfpack team of Natsumi McGee, Fiyin Olusola, Amor Howard and Lexi Becker finished third in the event, about a second behind Vista del Lago’s team, but the six points earned was enough to outdistance their Sierra Valley Conference rival for the Section banner.

The star for the Wolfpack was McGee who picked up wins in the 100 and 200 meters and was a part of the first-place 4X100 meters relay team. She’ll compete this week in the Section Masters’ Track and Field Championship in four events. 

The meet will take place Thursday and Friday at Elk Grove High School.

According to Cosumnes Oaks’ track coach Jeff Adams, McGee’s time of 12.34 seconds in the 100 meters will seed her number one overall.

At the Section Masters, the top qualifiers of all divisions compete for the right to advance to the California State Track and Field Meet, May 31 and June 1, at Buchanan High School.

Another member of the Wolfpack relay teams, Olusola, won the 100 meter hurdles with a season best of 15.09 seconds and was second in the 300 meter hurdles, again with a season-best of 46.77 seconds.

In the field events, Cosumnes Oaks was led by Mishaye Venerable who was first in the long jump (17 ft., 1.25 in.).

Tais Marinho-Gomez added a second place finish in the triple jump (36 ft. 2 in.) to round out the team scoring. 

There will be quite a number of other local athletes competing this week at the Section Masters, thanks to several good performances last Friday at the Division I meet held at Elk Grove High School.

Franklin's Chinyere Dike was first in the girls' 100 meters with a time of 12.47 seconds. Dike led the 4x100 meters relay team to a first place finish in that event. She was joined by Ifunanya Ezimora, Cecily Montanez and Desiree Winters.

Kamaya Tucker of Laguna Creek won the 200 meters in a time of 25.16 seconds. Dike was third in that event.

The host Herd team qualified its 4x100 meters boys’ relay team as Division I the team of Aiden Tank, Nicholas Bohamera, Armando Martinez and Brandon Bloodworth broke the school record with a mark of 42.47 seconds.

“We just worked out butts off,” Martinez said. “We didn’t have things go our way all the time this year. The way our team battled back this year was amazing.”

That performance was the third-fasted time in the 4x100 meters at Friday’s finals.

“Everything is starting to go our way now and to do this is quite an accomplishment,” Bohamera added.

Martinez came back later to place third in the 400 meters. Sheldon's Cameron Stone was second in that event while Jahmar Sexton of Monterey Trail finished seventh.

Ciara Levy of Monterey Trail was second in the girls' 100-meter hurdles and third in the 300 meter hurdles.

Monterey Trail's 4x100 meters relay team placed third and Sheldon was seventh.

In the 4x400 meters relay, Sheldon’s team of Steven Edwards, Taron Johnson, Drew Lang and Cameron Stone was first with a time of 3:20.75.

In the girls’ 4x400, Elk Grove’s team qualified for the Masters by finishing seventh.

Elk Grove’s Jack Ploeg was fifth in the 1600 meters and 10^th in the 800 meters to qualify for the Masters in both races.

In the 3200 meters, Sheldon’s Xavier Gaulman was eighth.

In the field events, Elk Grove's Jaime Cruz was ninth in the shot put. Richard Cooper of Pleasant Grove was second in the long jump and Monterey Trail's Roman Geiger was third.

Davis Hallberg of Elk Grove was second in the pole vault with a leap of 14 ft., 7 in.

Tiara Webb of Monterey Trail placed third in the girls' long jump.

The St. Francis girls and Jesuit boys was the Division I team championships. The Troubadours scored 77 points, one point better than Vacaville. Jesuit finished five points ahead of Granite Bay and Davis which tied for second in the boys’ competition.

Franklin’s girls were sixth overall while Sheldon’s boys finished seventh in team points.