Although Lake County is the 2nd smallest high school in the Frontier League, they showed up big at the League Track & Field Championships on April 29! 

The men’s team entered as the team to beat, and they pulled off the victory by 14.5 points over Englewood High School. The win was a true team effort, with every Panther athlete making a contribution. The Lady Panthers were ranked 3rd going into the meet, 39 points behind the favorite, Englewood. They overachieved in several events and gave Englewood quite a scare. 

Lake County men swept the high jump, with Jaxon Wood, Isaiah Martinez and Devyn Sterkel finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively. Matthew Wilson won the pole vault, and Jason Ayers took 2nd place. Adam Trujillo tied for 4th. 

The Panther men picked up more points in the throwing events than normal. Luis Macias placed 2nd in the discus, while Brendan Sandoval picked up 4th place. Sandoval led the Panthers in the shot put, with a 3rd place finish. Victor Galarza took 4th place, and Hunter Diamond placed 8th in that same event.

On the track, Jaren Peters raced both the 400 and 800m events, a difficult double because those exhausting events only have the 300m hurdle race between them. Peters took 2nd in the 400 and 3rd in the 800. Jude Peters finished 3rd in the 3200m run. Running the 3200m for the first time, Owen Harris took 7th, and Logan Charles also boosted the team score by placing 8th. In addition, Jude Peters was 7th in the 1600m.

In the sprints, Jaxon Wood placed 4th in the 200m and 5th in the 100m. Matthew Wilson finished 5th in the 400m and 8th in the 200m. 

Lake County scored 2 guys in both hurdle races. Nathanael Granillo took 5th in both the 110m hurdles and the 300m hurdles. Henry Greene ended up 8th in the 110m, and Arlo Mudge finished 6th in the 300m hurdles.

The Panthers also looked strong in the relay events. The first relay of the day was the 4x800m relay. Although Harris, Charles and Wilson Anderson ran solid legs, the team was in 4th place when Jude Peters took the baton. With a strong final lap, Peters pulled the team into 2nd place, where they ended up. Lake County’s 4x100m team of Matthew Medina, Sterkel, Wilson and Wood held off the Bennett sprinters to win the event. Medina, Martinez, Ayers and Josh Sweet combined for the 4x200m relay and ended up 2nd. The final relay of the day was the 4x400m. Medina, Ephraim Bunch, and Granillo ran solid splits, but the Panthers still found themselves in 4th place. Another Peters anchor (this time Jaren) made up multiple spots to bring the Panthers across the line in 2nd place.

On the ladies’ side, pole vaulters once again racked up big points. Susie Bullock is the league champion, while Lyza Zoller and Amara Olsen placed 2nd and 3rd respectively. Maggie and Kelsea Roeder both cleared 4’6” in the high jump. Because she had less misses, Maggie got the league title, and Kelsea tied for 2nd. Grace Green finished 5th.

Kelsea pulled an upset in the triple jump, moving up from 5th to 2nd place. Although ranked 4th in the shot put, she finished 2nd in that event too.

Tal Sheleg pulled the 400-800 double on the women’s side and accomplished 2nd place in both events. In the 800, Aimee Lenhard ended up 3rd and Zoller was 4th.

Chloe King, Indigo Olsen and Aimee Lenhard finished 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the 1600m. In the 3200m, Olsen led the way with a 2nd place finish. King placed 3rd, and Amara Olsen took 5th. Evelyn Talbot finished 7th.

Volunteering to run the 300m hurdles for the first time ever in order to buy teammate Tal Sheleg more recovery time, Grace Green scored 5th place points for the Lady Panthers. Abba Loew leaped her way to a 6th place finish.

Kimberlin Hinojos pulled off 2nd place in the discus, while Zoey Sweet took 4th place. Sweet also accomplished 3rd place in the shot put, 7th in the 100m hurdles and 8th in the 300m hurdles.

Green, Amara Olsen, Zoller and Sheleg ran the 4x800m relay to earn 2nd place points. In the 4x100m relay, Medina, Emma McCoy, Arianna Gonzalez and Kelsea Roeder finished 6th. 

Going into the final event of the evening, the 4x400m relay, the Lady Panthers were ahead of Englewood by 1.5 points. Unfortunately, they were unable to beat the stacked Englewood relay, and the Lake County team of Michelle Medina, Lenhard, Zoller and Sheleg finished 2nd, giving Englewood the women’s team title by ½ point! It was a valiant effort by the Lake County ladies!

With the conclusion of the Frontier League Championships, the focus shifts to qualifying for the State Meet!