Witt, a Birmingham transfer, contributes to two of eight overall meet records, including sprint medley relay; Gaitan doubles in the 1,500 and 3,000 as Great Oak sweeps team titles

By Landon Negri for DyeStat

Bella Witt is already comfortable in her new surroundings, and the official outdoor season hasn’t even started yet in California.

Rejuvenated by her move to Calabasas High and the CIF-Southern Section from Birmingham High of the L.A. City Section, Witt was not only a double winner Saturday at the California Track and Field Winter Outdoor Championships at Arcadia High, but she was the only athlete to get in on two meet records, as well.

Witt set her own mark in the 60-meter hurdles at 8.69 seconds, before later running the third leg of Calabasas’ 800 sprint medley relay, which won in 1 minute, 44.28 seconds, obliterating the former meet mark by four seconds.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” Witt said. “My teammates are really great, in and out of competition – it’s just a lot of fun.”

Her performances paced a day that saw eight meet records fall under fairly cool temperatures after a quick morning storm.

Six of those were on the girls’ side, as CIF-State Division 1 cross country champion Tori Gaitan of Great Oak set a new mark in the 3,000 meters at 10:07.11, while returning state champion pole vaulter Laurel Wong won on her final vault of 12 feet, 10 inches (3.91m).

West Ranch’s Natalie Ramirez added a meet record in the shot put (47-0), as did Warren’s Dayanara Cendejas in the weight throw (48-4.75).

Just two meet records were eclipsed on the boys’ side, as Great Oak’s 4x800 team of senior Grayson Boyce, junior Chris Verdugo, sophomore Mateo Joseph and senior Ryan Shields won in 8:02.91. Daniel Palacio of Quartz Hill set a new pole vault meet mark of 15-1 after outlasting Great Oak sophomore Jack Wright. Both vaulters missed their attempts at 15-4; Wright had one miss at 15-1.

Great Oak won both team competitions easily. The boys tallied 78.5 points to down runner-up West Ranch (34 points), while the Wolfpack girls scored 70.5 to West Ranch’s 26.5.

Witt, a triple-state meet qualifier last year as a freshman at Birmingham and a 100-meter hurdles City Section champ, is liking what she’s seeing so far in the San Fernando Valley.

“For us at Calabasas, competition is every practice,” she said. “It’s like a meet at every practice.”

That was a reason the sprint medley was so anticipated Saturday. Senior Kennedy Waite and sophomore Jade McDonald – a Friday replacement for Kyla Robinson-Hubbard – started with the two 100-meter legs; Witt ran the 200, and senior De’Anna Nowling ran her only her event of the day in the anchor 400.

“I was excited,” said McDonald, a Mater Dei transfer. “I knew I had to hold my weight, though.”

Earlier in the day, Wong capped a stacked competition in the pole vault – where four of the state’s top five from a year ago were competing – with a dramatic victory.

Wong, Westlake sophomore Paige Sommers and Poway senior Camryn Thomson all cleared 12-4, before the trio combined to miss their first eight tries at 12-10. Wong then went up a pole and converted the final attempt.

Wong took three tries at 13-5, as well, but was perhaps rushed a bit as she needed to return to Monterey County by late afternoon for a function.

“It’s a little dangerous, sometimes, to move up poles on your very last attempt,” Wong said. “But I think I knew that if I went up, I could hit it really hard and get over that bar.”

Gaitan came close to making it two meet marks Saturday, but still was a double winner. Carrying momentum from the Wolfpack’s girls state championship cross country season – their seventh in a row – Gaitan held off a strong kick from Granada Hills freshman Sofia Abrego to win the 1,500.

She won the 3,000 in a race in which four girls, including Gaitan, Abrego (10:21.40), Costa Mesa junior Diane Molina (10:14.79) and Oakland Skyline junior Eleanor Wikstrom (10:11.96) would’ve set meet marks.

Another Inland Southern California athlete, senior Skye Lattimore of Orange Vista (Perris), chalked up two wins by running the third leg of the Coyotes’ winning 4x200 relay (1:42.80) after winning the pentathlon with 2,784 points.

Great Oak sophomore Summer Stevenson came close to two wins. Her triple jump of 39-0.50 edged West Ranch senior Shelbi Schauble (38-1), while Orange Lutheran junior Sophia Hartwell (17-9) defeated Stevenson (17-2.50) in the long jump.

“I felt good,” Stevenson said. “My paces were holding and my landing was coming together.”

Serra senior Jazmyne Frost picked up where she left off last June, as the returning state runner-up in the 100 won the 60 on Saturday in 7.62, just ahead of Lakewood’s Alexusa Alexander (7.64) and two Rancho High School seniors from North Las Vegas – Amira Edmond (7.64) and Aniya Smith (7.67).

The boys also saw some tense contests and dramatic finishes.

Madison senior Kenan Christon (6.99) won a tight 60-meter race in which just three-hundredths of a second separated the top five.

“Getting close to the finish, we were kind of close,” said Christon, seventh in the state in the 100 last year. “Then it’s all a matter of who leans first.”

Among those he outleaned were Rancho Cucamonga’s Christopher Hill, who did come back later and won the 300 in 34.12. Hill missed much of last season due to injury.

The shot put featured a rematch of the top two finishers in last year’s state meet, though Saturday went in the opposite order.

Esperanza junior Jeff Duensing won on his final throw, a whopper that went 64-0 and propelled him ahead of returning state champ Daniel Viveros of Bakersfield Liberty (61-11).

“I tend to PR on my last throw,” Duensing said. “So I was hoping it was coming.”

As expected, Great Oak dominated in the distances, two months after the Wolfpack’s national-runner up finish at the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland. As is tradition with Great Oak, its NXN runners wore their NXN jerseys Saturday.

The distance medley team of Verdugo, Joseph, Shields and senior Tyler Tickner won in 10:41.64 after being pushed by its ‘B’ team, which placed second in 10:44.55.

The Great Oak ‘A’ team missed the meet mark by a little more than a second.

“It was just, ‘Run as fast as we could,’” Joseph said. “And not necessarily get a time goal.”

Joseph, Verdugo and Shields made it two wins in the 4x800, joining Boyce in the meet-record time.

In the 1,500, though, West Ranch senior Evan Bates surged ahead and then held off Verdugo and Great Oak junior Cole Sawires Yager to win in 3:59.82.

And he did it all while wearing a Lucky Charms-themed jersey, complete with the cereal’s logo on the front and all the different charms on the back.

“My favorite cereal is Lucky Charms,” Bates explained. “I’m Irish. I’m ginger. I love Lucky Charms, so why not have some fun and make me a Lucky Charms jersey?”

Other boys winners included Merrill West’s Warren Williams (8.24) in the 60 hurdles, Valencia’s Kai Wingo (1:19.80) in the 600, Valencia (1:33.57) in the 800 sprint medley, Morro Bay’s Joseph Ruddle (6-5) in the high jump, Newport Harbor’s Alexis Garcia (8:57.78) in the 3,000, Cathedral (1:30.65) in the 4x200, Oakdale’s Ben Chappell (60-4.50) in the weight throw and Cabrillo’s Ty Hernandez (3,012) in the pentathlon.

Remaining winners for the girls were Santa Clara’s Maia Garcia in the high jump (5-1), Oaks Christian’s Janiah Brown (1:35.42) in the 600, Claremont in the distance medley (12:41.94), Great Oak in the 4x800 (9:41.32) and Egbe Ndipagbor of Corona in the 300 (39.56).