Castaic Coyotes track and field split wins in Thursday’s regular season finale dual meet with the visiting Golden Valley Grizzlies on Thursday.
Castaic’s girls won their meet, 86-46.99, while the Grizzly boys won, 75-61.
The Coyotes girls’ team was led by none other than junior Meagan Humphries. The junior holds top-three ranks in the state in the 200-meter dash as well as all three jump events.
Humphries, a newfound sprinter, hit a personal best to win the girls’ 100-meter dash in 12.01 seconds, just edging by Grizzlies freshman Marley Scroggins. Humphries also finished the regular season with wins in the 200 with a 24.43-second finish, an 18-foot, 4.75-inch leap in the long jump and a first place mark of 42 feet, 6 inches in the triple jump.
Castaic head coach Eric Johnson has seen his star junior train hard every day, even though she wasn’t able to compete for a majority of the season due to transfer rules.
“It’s unfortunate that she had to sit out most of the season due to the transfer rules, but she’s kept herself prepared and has hit the ground running,” Johnson said via email. “In the beginning of the year everyone just saw her as a jumper. College coaches came to see her jump, which she’s incredible at. What they hadn’t yet noticed was how fast she is. Now there are coaches coming from everywhere interested in her sprinting ability as well as her jumping. Meagan comes to practice every day ready to work. Her dad (Will Humphries) works a great deal with her and boy am I glad he came on board, helping out all of our jumpers as well. Her work ethic is everything you could ask for and you see the results.”
Fellow jumper and sprinter Regan Thompson also picked up a win on Thursday, with a 59.32-second first-place finish in the girls’ 400-meter dash.
In distance, Laura Lazzarato-Bosque led the way with wins in the girls 800 and 1600-meter runs. Lazzarato-Bosque finished the 800 in 2 minutes and 28.26 seconds just before a nailbiter race in the 1600. The Castaic distance runner just sneaked past teammate Kassidy Vargas to win the race with a 6-minute and 3.58-second finish, just .02 seconds ahead of Vargas.
On the boys’ side, Golden Valley yet again took home wins in the jumping events.
Grizzlies sophomore Esaias Ellis hit new personal records of 19 feet, 5.25 inches in the long jump and a 42-foot, 6-inch mark in the triple jump to win both events. Sophomore Andrew Venegas won the high jump for Golden Valley, clearing the 5-foot, 4-inch bar.
The Grizzly boys also picked up wins in distance and in the hurdles races. Senior Jack Eaton hit a new personal best time of 4 minutes and 35.77 seconds to win the 1600. Eaton also topped the podium in the 3200 after a finish of 10 minutes and 46.62 seconds.
Golden Valley junior Antonio Moore also hit a new best mark, over in the hurdles. Moore finished 110-meter hurdles race in 16.8 seconds and the 300 in 45.15 seconds.
Castaic got a ton of points thanks to a great day from the boys’ sprint team. Senior Imudiase Aimiuwu won the 100 in 11.15 seconds, besting two Coyote teammates within 0.34 seconds of him.
Aimiuwu has been Mr. Castaic for the track and field program as well as other Coyote teams. The senior holds school records in the 100, 200 and 400.
However, Sophomore Elijah Reid won the 200 in 23.81 seconds while freshman Ryan Woods won the 400 in 53.16 seconds.
“Yes, our boys did extremely well yesterday,” Johnson said. “They were motivated by a mishap we had at Arcadia as well as this being our final league meet of the year.”
Johnson has seen his program rise to the challenge in the Foothill League this year. The young program has the chance to hang the school’s first banner should Humphries or another Coyote extend their season through the CIF preliminaries and Masters.
“Our school is still new and I would say 98% of our athletes had never done track before so they are still learning how to be great runners,” Johnson said. “They are starting to figure out what it takes to be great athletes. They still aren’t there, but I can see it starting to click a little more each week. We are losing some talented seniors, but have a really good group coming back. I just hope they can take the cues from the seniors and carry that over to next season.”
Neither team took home a league championship but both are aiming to send a pack of Coyotes and Grizzlies to CIF. The athletes’ next time to shine will be on Friday, at the Foothill League preliminaries at College of the Canyons.