Seven athletes qualified for CIF after league finals at the Fred Kelly Stadium, officials said.
“The majority of them have strong athletic backgrounds, so it helped that we were able to share athletes from other sports at SH,” track and field coach Jacob Holloway said. “I feel their commitment to seeing out a 2nd (or even 3rd) sports season is a testament to their dedication and work ethic.”
The Friday, May 2, culminating league event hosted by El Modena High School in Orange followed a season in which the boys and girls teams competed in dual meets, a contrast to what had occurred in previous seasons when Sunny Hills was a part of the Freeway League.
Despite this change, the athletes had mixed reactions to how the season went.
While personal bests were set and team records were eclipsed, the girls squad fared the best as it finished atop the inaugural North Hills League with a final score of 108-60-57-47-41.
Throughout the season, the repeated wins from the Lady Lancers gave Holloway a good feeling about the possible outcomes.
“You never know how the season will progress, but I felt we had a good chance in pre-season and after we beat Sonora, I knew we were in pole position, so it’s great to see them finish the job,” the coach said. “We have a lot of girls who came from different sports and I feel their competitive mindset along with the camaraderie they developed as a group helped push us over the finish line.”
Leading the way for the girls were freshman Reagan Williams, sophomores Madeyln Sooter and Kaila Ego and junior Mia Gonzales.
Sooter had kicked off the season with the first record-breaking performance of the season during the Friday, Feb. 24, Fullerton City Meet at Fullerton Union High School with a time of 26.63 in the 200-meter dash, beating the previous school record of 26.7 seconds.
Then two months later, on Thursday, April 3, Sooter broke her own 200-meter record at the Walnut Invitational Meet with a 26.01 time.
“It was an eventual goal, but I wasn’t sure when it was going to happen,” she said. “After it happened, I was really happy and surprised — I heard my dad yelling from the stands after the time posted and found out I did it.”
Although the switch to dual meets this year didn’t necessarily affect her performance this season, the sprinter said the new format has both pros and cons.
“It makes the meets go by faster, but there’s also less time to recover with multiple events, especially when prelims are back-to-back,” she said. “Right now, I’m just trying to stay locked in throughout each meet and between events.”
Head coach Jacob Holloway said he agrees with Sooter.
“I don’t necessarily think it improved times or personal records [PR],” Holloway said. “But I do think it gave us more opportunities to work on specific aspects of the events.”
Undefeated, the girls team finished the season as league champions — something the program hasn’t achieved since 1980.
The boys ended their season in fourth place overall and senior Mohammad Ibrahim won first overall in the Triple Jump event to cap off a successful season for him and the boys’ team.
Ibrahim was among some of the standouts for the boys, making history during the Thursday, April 3, meet when he smashed a school, 53-year-old triple jump record of 45 feet 3.5 inches with a distance of 45 feet 7.5 inches.
“I didn’t expect to break the record, especially at another meet against a rival school,” the jumper said. “But when I landed, it felt like a good jump, and when I looked down at the tape, I just knew.”
Since then, Ibrahim continued to give solid performances in the triple jump event and almost beat the record again when he jumped 45 feet 7 inches at the meet against Foothill High School on Wednesday, April 16.
“My focus is to keep getting first place,” he said. “The record is cool, but I just want to go there and win.”
Ibrahim ended up being the only SH athlete to qualify for the CIF finals at Moorpark High School after placing ninth place at the preliminary meet.
A sprinter, sophomore Josef Hudak, broke a school record this season. With a time of 10.90 seconds in the 100-meter dash, Hudak topped the previous record of 11.05 at the meet against Sonora on Thursday, April 3.
“I felt on top of the world when I broke the record,” Hudak said. “Getting under 11 seconds in the 100 has been my goal since I first stepped onto the Sunny Hills track team, so knowing I finally did it and having all my teammates there celebrating made it that much more special.”
As their coach, Holloway witnessed the hard work of these athletes throughout the season, and he said he is glad their progression is positive.
“It’s really a testament to the work they’ve put in — Mo and Josef have been working all summer into the fall through the winter, and it’s just good to see that their progression has been positive, either dropping the times or increasing their jump marks,” Holloway said. “Maddie has just been crushing it across the board since she’s been here, and it’s good to still see her engage, still wanting to drive the team forward, not just herself — she’s really stepped up as a leader and been a good example to a lot of the other teammates.”
The coach said the team’s decision to begin training in the fall for this season might have contributed to these record-breaking performances.
“We’ve essentially got a group of people who are in better shape,” he said. “We had a couple months of competition, and now, we’re able to turn the volume down for the last two weeks so that everyone can be fresh going into prelims and finals, whereas in previous years, we would still be working on that general prep phase at this point in the season.”
