Warrior girls outrun Pirates for track and field victory

A high school track and field meet consists of 10 running events and six field events. On April 14, Fallbrook High School hosted Oceanside in a Valley League dual meet. Oceanside took first place in four of the six girls field events and outscored the Warriors by a 38-15 margin in those competitions, but the Warrior girls won nine of the 10 races and had a 59-23 position points advantage in those events.

Fallbrook scored a 74-61 victory over the Pirates to improve to improve to 2-0 in Valley League dual meets.

"It was close," said Fallbrook coach Marco Arias. "They competed and stepped up. I'm very pleased with what they're doing."

The final two field events were the long jump and the triple jump. Oceanside swept the three long jump scoring positions, and Fallbrook's only triple jump point was the single third-place position point obtained when Alexandra Danso had a distance of 32'7".

"That's really what made the meet close," said Arias.

The final running event was the 4x400 relay. The relay races provide five points to the winner and no other position points, and Fallbrook concluded the meet with the race victory when April Paulson, Audrey Peterson, Hannah French, and Natalie Dudley posted a time of 4:19.1.

Fallbrook's only sweep was in the 1,600-meter race where Dudley had a time of 5:32.4, Andrea Vela posted the second-place time of 5:42.4, and Gisselle Rivera finished in 5:43.3. The first Oceanside finisher took 6:14.

"They weren't really challenged," said Arias of his runners.

Dudley also won the 800-meter event with a time of 2:30.6

while Peterson was second at 2:34.9. The final distance race was

the 3,200-meter run and Rivera won it in 12:42.8. Vela finished second with a clocking of 13:43.5.

"We really needed those points on that one," said Arias. "They achieved what they needed to do."

Although Fallbrook didn't truly sweep the pole vault points, the Warriors had the only two pole vaulters with qualified marks. Sandra Duong cleared 7'0" and Peterson 6'0". Emily Larson recorded the Warriors' only other field event win when she took the high jump with a leap of 5'0".

Larson also won the 100-meter hurdles race with a time of 16.8 seconds and French was third in that race at 17.4 seconds. French took first in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 49.2 seconds.

Darriale Yarbrough also had two individual wins against the Pirates with times of 12.6 seconds in the 100-meter dash and 26.3 seconds in the 200-meter dash. Larson's time of 26.9 seconds placed second in the 200-meter dash.

Paulson provided a win in the 400-meter race with a time of 2:02.9.

Oceanside took 17 of the 18 throwing event points. Two Oceanside discus throwers exceeded 100 feet while Fallbrook's Anna Curran was third with a throw of 88'2".

"The girls threw really well for us," said Arias. "We knew we were going to struggle with that one."