Golden Valley’s Kiera Donovan gets her third consecutive CIF discus title
The victories just keep on coming for the Canyon High School girls’ track team.
The Foothill League champion Cowboys added the CIF Southern Section Division 2 title to their resume, beating out second-place Murrieta Valley by more than 20 points.
Canyon won both relays, while Lanai Gant, a member of both of those squads, won the 400-meter dash.
“It’s an incredible feeling,” said Canyon head coach George Velarde in a recent phone interview. “We are so happy for the girls’ team, the track program, our school, our community, the coaching staff. We’re so excited that that opportunity was able to happen for the girls, and obviously they embraced it. And, you know, we’re celebrating a CIF championship.”
Golden Valley was fourth in the girls’ team standings. Kiera Donovan claimed the D2 discus title for the third consecutive year and also placed fourth in the shot put. She is ranked seventh in the state in discus and 16th in shot put, according to Golden Valley co-head coach Megan Cooper.
Gant won her individual event in 54.92 seconds. Two of her teammates, Alaya Graves-Hogains and Lyric Scott, finished second and third in the 400. Scott was third in the 200, followed by Graves-Hogains in fourth and Gant in fifth.
All three of those girls were part of both the 4×100 and 4×400 relays. Emoni Wright helped to win the former, and Keziah Webster helped to win the latter.
Those placements were a big reason why the Canyon girls went from taking third at the CIF finals last year, to finishing on top this season.
“That was a goal from the end of last year, building off of what we did last year,” Velarde said. “And we knew that at this time of year, if we were healthy, you know, we had a good chance. And obviously our girls are healthy, and they did extremely well.”
West Ranch placed eighth in the girls’ D2 team standings and was led by Tamea Crear’s first-place finish in the 200. Her time of 24.27 seconds was just three-hundredths of a second off her personal record, according to her father and coach, Mark Crear.
A two-time Olympic medalist, Mark said her daughter has known that even though her dad was a successful athlete, she needs to work hard to be successful herself.
“She works real hard, and I’m just proud of that,” Crear said in a recent phone interview. “She’s seeing the fruits of her labor, you know. And a lot of people think it’s easy because they’re looking at the glory, but they don’t know the story. They don’t know the hard work that goes into it.”
Avery Prestridge, who was coming off a foot injury and had little time to prepare, Crear said, took fifth in the 300-meter hurdles for West Ranch. Annabelle Amneus was fourth in the discus.
While Donovan was the big star for the Golden Valley girls’ team, Nyah Fields also showed out with a second-place finish in the long jump and third in the triple jump. Noa Prothais took fifth in the 400.
Fields is ranked eighth in the state for the long jump and 18th in the triple jump.
On the boys’ side of the meet, Canyon’s Jordehn Gammage won the 110-meter hurdles and placed fourth in the 300-meter hurdles. He was last year’s state champion in the latter event, and Velarde said it’s just the way it worked out this year that he’s performing better in the former.
“He’s gonna work on and tweak a couple things to see if we can knock off a few more seconds,” Velarde said.
Gammage and Nathan Hernandez, who took second in the pole vault, helped the Canyon boys to a third-place finish in the team standings.
Owen Souther set the Canyon school record in the 1600 with a time of 4:14.22 to take seventh, less than a second behind Hart’s Eli Ahten, who was fifth.
Golden Valley’s Addae Ma’at claimed the triple jump title and was third in the long jump. His mark of 48 feet, 11 ½ inches in the former broke his own school record, and he is currently ranked fourth in the state in the event.
Josh Farley was just behind his Golden Valley teammate with a fourth-place finish in the triple jump.
Hart’s Graysen Rivera placed second in the shot put, while teammate Alejandro Cueto was fifth in the 800.
At West Ranch, Tyler Halvorsen was fourth in the 800 and Braulio Castillo was sixth in the 3200.
Crear said the West Ranch athletes moving on to the Southern Section Masters meet, scheduled for Saturday at Moorpark High School, have their work cut out for them to qualify for the state meet, but he’s trying to focus on getting the best results possible. His daughter qualified for the state meet last year in the 100, but is now looking at doing so in the 200.
“On any day, anybody can win,” Crear said. “And that’s the spirit that I’m trying to convey to them. You know, it doesn’t matter what the stats say; it matters what you do on that day.”
Cooper thinks all three of Donovan, Ma’at and Fields can make it to Buchanan High School in Clovis for the state meet.
“Addae and Kiera have been there before and are very eager to go back,” Cooper wrote in an email. “Nyah is working extremely hard to make her first trip to state.”
