RIGHT ON TRACK

Buchanan High School is the home of two of the biggest high school track and field meets in the state.

By Megan Poindexter
VSP Senior Writer

With the CIF State Track and Field Meet coming to Fresno in June, Saturday’s West Coast Relays served as a preview of the talent locals can expect to see.

“We brought in more competition and the level of them meet was higher,” said Brian Weaver, head coach at Buchanan and the meet director.

The meet started off with early record breaking as De La Salle, a school known for its’ dominance in high school football, saw its’ 4X100 meter team run a time of 41.99.

However, Spartans head coach John Harvey, who graduated from Roosevelt High School, said that it wasn’t his teams’ best performance as they ran a 41.95 the previous week.

“We wanted to come and run on this track early and see how it was,” said Harvey. “Our main reason for coming is because this is the state track now.”

And while the running events went well, the field events faced a tough head wind. Chase Wheeler of De La Salle came into the meet with the states’ second longest jump at 23 feet eight inches, but was only able to jump 22 feet six inches at the West Coast Relays.

“Kids normally compete better in stadiums they have been to before,” said Harvey. “We can do better though.”

As for the local standouts, Clovis High School Jenna Prandini had possibly the meets best performance.
The sophomore, who placed 10th in the 100-meter dash and sixth in the long jump at last year’s state meet with a torn ligament in her hip, took first in all four of her events Saturday and broke meet records in all of them.

She set a personal best of 39 feet 31/2 inches in the triple jump and a personal best in the 200-meter dash at 24.68. After scratching three times in the long jump she jumped 18 feet 10 inches, four inches short of her best, and turned around to win the 100-meter dash at 12.24.

“It doesn’t really boost my confidence because I still know there are a lot of good people out there,” said Prandini. “I just like running on this track because I’m getting more experience.”

The meet saw several of its records broken and while Weaver credits that to the tough level of competition, he doesn’t deny that the improvement to the Buchanan track has helped as well.
In partnership with the Clovis Unified School District, the Bears have been trying to bring the state championships to Fresno for quite some time and this will mark the first of three consecutive years that they will host the meet.

As a result, the track went from the all-weather surface to mondo in May of 2007. And while the stadium currently has a capacity of around 8,500 but bleachers will be added to the south end zone to create around 11,000 seats.

For over a decade the State Meet has been either held at Cerritos College or in Sacramento, where both stadiums can seat over 15,000 people. However, the meet normally attracts and average crowd of 9,000-12,000 people.

“This is a great high school facility,” said Harvey.

For now, Weaver and other locals are continually hopeful that with the state finals being moved to the central location the intensity of meets such as the West Coast Relays and around the Valley will rise.
It already looks to be happening as this year alone the Buchanan staff added 14 new teams to the meet to bring the total to 72.

“Anytime you can compete in a familiar place it builds the fan base,” said Weaver. “This gets people excited.”

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