After competing in the Antelope Valley College All-Comers meet on Feb. 4 at AVC Bakersfield College, coach David Frickel talked about the team, their improvements over the previous week at the same venue and where the team was at going forward to its next scheduled competition.
“We’re going to train real hard this week because we don’t have a meet next week, and train real hard through the week and taper off next week to get ready for the meet on the 17th,” said Frickel.
“It’s going to be eight way, we’re having four schools from So Cal, and probably four out of the north. We’ll get a chance to see some schools that we normally don’t get to go against, we don’t get to see Nor. Cal. schools until the state meet.”
The meet on Feb. 17 is to take place at BC, and the following week will provide the Renegades their first chance to compete in the conference at Citrus College on Feb. 24.
“The conference relays at Citrus College, that’s the first introduction to competition within the conference,” he said. And he spoke about some of the top schools.
“Glendale’s always tough, Moorpark usually has a pretty good program,” Frickel said about some of the top schools in the conference. “Each year it changes a little bit in reference to who has what, so I don’t know, we’ll get out on the 24th when we get together as a conference. We’ll kind of see where people have their strengths and weaknesses within the conference.”
Frickel also talked about some of the progression that was made over the previous meet back at AVC on Feb. 4.
“Sarena [Underwood] had a nice drop in the 100 meters, Chris Schwartz had a nice double on the 1500 and 3000, Keenan [Colditz] had a nice double on the 1500 and 3000 for the men. Those are probably the highlights of the day as far as what we had going,” he said.
Frickel said the turnout of competition was more complete than the week before.
“It was a little different with people there, a few more bodies there this week, so it was probably a little bit better with the number of people that showed up at the meet.” Also mentioning the weather as a continuing factor, he added, “A little bit better than the week before, but still we had at different points a pretty good gust of wind that day, so that’s a tough venue when you go there, it blows, it usually has some wind. So yeah, it affects the times, the kids, when they come down the home stretch and they’re getting hammered in the face with the wind, so you can’t really ask for too much.”
The improvement in performances acknowledged by coach Frickel at the AVC event was reflected in the following results: For the BC women, Underwood placed fourth in the 100-meter dash with a time of 13.75. Elizabeth Sanchez took first place in the 800 meter run with a time of 2:29.73. Amanda Smith won the shot put with a distance of 8.59m, and also won the discus throw with 26.73m, and Breann Goodmon finished first in the hammer throw with a 37.71m mark.
On the BC men side, Oe’Sha Schoclet finished second in the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.81, and Dashawn Meadows took first in the 400-meter dash with a time of 52.06. Schwartz won the 1500 meter run in 4:09.64, and also won the 3000 in 9:05.92. Colditz finished second in the 1500 with a time of 4:15.08, and third in the 3000 with a time of 9:29.15.