MARAUDERS STRIKE GOLD AND SILVER AT WSC CHAMPIONSHIPS

The Antelope Valley men and women's track teams advanced three men and six women to the Socal Regionals, competing at the WSC Championships on April 29th at Santa Monica College.

On a picture-perfect, sunny, and breezy Friday afternoon, the Lady Marauders got the day started with a silver medal performance in the 4x100 meter relay. The team of Sara Morales, Kayla Thompson, Briann Brazill, and Prishencia Nnoham passed the baton around the track in a time of 48.36, good enough to punch their ticket to next week's regionals while tying the second-fastest time in school history.

Xavier Tatham, already a hammer qualifier a week earlier, upset the form chart, coming in as the #7 seed in the shot put, and almost pulled off the upset, placing second with a career-best. Xavier would return later to place 6th in the men's discus throw, giving him three SoCal advancement events. Not to be outdone, the women got back into the act pulling off a 1-2 finish in the women's 400 meters as Kayla Thompson and teammate Prishencia Nnoham battled to the wire and, in the process, moved to #5 and #6 AVC all-time.

Briann Brazill decided to join in and qualified in the 100 meters, losing the gold medal by a scant one-hundredth of a second. The disappointment quickly faded at the announcement she had run under 12 seconds for the first time and moved to #2 all-time for the Marauders. Celeste Meza suffered what appeared to be the heartbreak of the day for the Marauders. While she was clinging to the 7th and final spot during the 400-meter hurdles, she hit the 7th hurdle and tumbled to the track. Undaunted, Meza quickly gathered herself, made a mad dash to the finish line, and regained her position in 7th.

The women's 200-meter final brought Thompson, Nnoham, and Brazill together, and they did not disappoint, placing 2nd, 4th, and 5th, each running a lifetime best, with Thompson's performance ranking third all-time AVC. The women finished their efforts for the day as the #2 seed in the women's 4x400 meter relay. Coach Veney took a gamble putting 400-meter champion Thompson on the first leg (putting Meza and Brazill in the middle), hoping to build a good lead. It looked as if the gamble went snake eyes when as Nnoham took the baton in the anchor position, she stared at a near-insurmountable 30-meter deficit behind conference leader Bakersfield College. For 300 meters of the final leg, it looked as if the Marauder gamble was a bust when Nnoham produced a thrilling last 50 meters to overtake the Bakersfield anchor a mere 10 meters from the line for the win. That gave the Marauders their second win of the day and produced the #8 fastest 4x400 for Antelope Valley.

Makuochukwu Ene, a 9th seed, came through with a career-best in the triple jump to grab the #4 spot, while Jordan Kennon (tied with Ene for the 9th spot coming in) also produced his best of the year to capture 5th place. Kennon joins Tatham, moving on to SoCal Regionals in three events (high, long, and triple jump). "The team really performed well today, continuing last week's theme of regional advancement," commented head track and field coach Tony Veney. "We will be well represented when we travel to Moorpark for the Regional Prelims, with our final goal still ahead of us to advance to the state meet at Mt. San Antonio College on May 20-21," he added. The SoCal Prelims are set for May 6th, with field events starting at 10:00 am and the first running event scheduled at noon.