GILROY — Nothing was going to stop the Avis Kelley Invitational from going on Saturday: Not the rain, not the condemned bleachers and not the semipro football game scheduled for that night.
Light showers fell for much of the meet, getting heavy enough at times to cut short the pole vault. The winner of that event did a single jump, clearing 11 feet, 6 inches.
Beyond that, the only delays came when rain forced the throwing pits be closed to blow out the puddles. It also shut down the 100-meter race temporarily while they fixed the timing equipment.
Meanwhile, spectators were forced to occupy the visitors bleachers along Garcia-Elder Stadium as the more expansive home-side seating is still too unsafe to use.
But nothing was stopping the competitors, not even the wrong spike on a high jumper’s shoe.
Tim Van Horn from Gilroy came to his coaches the day before the race asking for a replacement spike. His were pyramid shaped spikes, but all the coaches had were rounded tipped ones.
Gilroy coach Cathy Silva handed him the off-shaped metal piece and told him this was his lucky spike.
“I told him, ‘your PR is 6-2 and with this spike, you’re going to jump 6-4’,” Silva said.
The 5-foot-10 Van Horn cleared 6-feet, 4-inches for second place in the high jump.
“He came running over to tent because he knew I was working in here … and he’s saying, ‘coach, coach. I did 6-4.’ He was so excited,” Silva said. “It was so much fun to see. He found my husband on field and gave him a hug. He had to tell everyone.”
Just shy of 30 teams competed in the invitational.
Live Oak boys and Christopher girls led the South County schools in team finishes. The Cougars took second, finishing one point behind Valley Christian. The Acorns took fourth over all and featured a near school record in the 3200.
“They did awesome. They came out and did what they needed to do with the weather and conditions and they come in and did better than they’ve ever done,” said Live Oak coach Janet Lee. “
Live Oak’s Eddie King beat his closest competitor by eight seconds as he came just shy of a school record in the event, finishing at 9:41.45. He initially thought he had shattered the school record, but found out later he had missed it by five seconds.
He had bested the previous best time by about 17 seconds, but that was when the race was a 3218-meter run. When the times were converted, he was just shy.
King also took second in the 1600 at 4:30.08.
He was one of two Acorns who took first places.
James Gabbard, who is slowly trying to come back from an injury, took first in the 800-meters besting second place by a little more than a half second.
He beat Sebastian Thiessen from Santa Teresa by .63 seconds at 1:59.48. Gabbard said his strategy is to pass the person in front of him at the turn to the last 100 meters and focus solely on getting to the finish line.
“I honestly had no idea where he was, I was just hoping he wasn’t next to me,” Gabbard said.
It was just the fourth time Gabbard has finished in under 2 minutes.
Also note worthy for Live Oak as the fact for the first time in a few years, it competed in the pole vault.
Tyler Smart took fourth in the Frosh/Soph, leaping 9-feet-6.
For Christopher, the lack of girls was compensated by the quality of the runners.
“We don’t have enough bodies on girls varsity, but we have enough talent in varsity to pick up the points we need to get,” said CHS’ Mark Carrick, who was filling in for Jeff Myers while he was out sick.
Carrick said the main goal was to give the girls an extra chance to qualify for the Arcadia Invitational on April 11.
The Cougars had 10 top five finishes on the day, led by Ally Foster, who won the 300 hurdles, took second in the 100 hurdles, second in the triple jump and third in the long jump.
Vanessa Koontz had a trio of second place finishes, starting with a virtual tie in the 200, running a 26.61. She finished a fraction behind the winner Emma O’Regan from Santa Cruz, who is listed at finishing at 26.61. They were a hundredth of a second separated from the third place finisher out of Santa Teresa.
Silva said the race officials went off high-speed photography to determine the winner. She added that the difference was possibly just in the thousandths of a second, which couldn’t be measured by their timing instruments.
“It was really intense. (We were) just pushing everything. I just had a soccer game too, it was crazy,” Koontz said.
Koontz said she didn’t know how she was able to do both a soccer match and the Avis Kelley except that she went on pure adrenaline.
Koontz also earned seconds on the 4×100 and 4×400 relay teams.
The 4×400 relay team took second even though it was missing one of its runners. It had to find a substitute runner during the meet and it paid off with a finish that was a little more than a second behind the winner. Christopher finished at 4:15.43, just behind Santa Teresa who came in at 4:14.15. But the Cougars still finished 8.5 seconds ahead of Central-Fresno.
It was during the 4×400 that members of the Delta Ducks and the Central Coast Barnstormers semipro football team began warming up for their game scheduled for 7 p.m. The actual football field had to be cleared of the students, some of whom had pitched tents, to get things ready for the game.
Gilroy’s young team was led by Nicole Holder in the high jump, which she won with a leap of 4-feet-10.
Sean Kaufman also had a strong day in the jumps, taking second in the long jump at 20-feet-3 and taking fourth in the triple jump at 40 feet.
For a full list of how everyone did, click here.
