Individual Sailors succeed

Rick Devereux

Sometimes in track and field individual wins and accomplishments

don’t add up to team wins. Such was the case Wednesday as Woodbridge

High beat Newport Harbor in both the boys, 73 1/2-61 1/2, and girls,

75-61.

Plenty of Newport Harbor athletes performed well, particularly

considering the gusty wind, but it was not enough.

For the boys, Keith Eldridge took first in the 100-yard dash and

the 200. Eldridge also ran the anchor leg of the 400 relay, a

come-from-behind victory for the Sailors.

“I just ran as fast as I could because I was behind by seven

feet,” the sophomore said. “It feels good to win. We did a good job.”

The win was surprising because one the top members of the relay

team was down because of an injury. Joel Walker, who normally runs

the second leg of the relay, injured his knee over the weekend at a

soccer tournament. But some shuffling by Coach Nowell Kay kept the

squad in a position to win.

“Eldridge was the anchor, Chase Nelson ran first, Ryan Ripon

usually runs our third leg ran second today, and Nick Miller our

senior ran our third leg,” Kay said.

Trevor Theriot came within two inches of matching his personal

best in the shot put, throwing 49 feet, 5 inches.

“It felt good, but I was going for 50 feet,” Theriot said. “ I

just went after it today. We’ve got the wind, we’ve got everything.

It was a good day.”

Many girls went for and surpassed personal records. Whitney Blue’s

5:21.3 in the 1,600 and 11:30.9 in the 3,200 not only were her best

times, but were good enough for victories in each event. Lauren Paul

come in second in the 3,200 with her own personal best of 11:32.1.

“The 1,600 was really big for us to win because Woodbridge has a

really good distance program,” Coach Eric Tweit said. “This is the

first time Whitney’s really ran in a pressure race where we needed

her to do something for us. That was a huge race for her.”

The field events also produced Sailor victories. Freshman Allison

Stokke cleared 11 feet in the pole vault, barely missing her three

attempts to tie her best mark of 11-6.

Ciara Lawrence improved to 5-0 in Sea View League competition in

the shot put, throwing 32 feet, and Elizabeth Clayton finished first

in the 100 hurdles and the triple jump, but the Sailors came up short

as a team.

The boys are 2-3 and the girls are 3-2 heading into the league

finals next week.