For the 3rd year in a row, Vista Murrieta hosted their season opening "Saddle Up" Invite.  One of the finer invitationals in the local area, it brings together some of the best athletes in the county.  Coley Candaele and his incredibly organized army put on a great affair.  In 2007, the invite fought severe Santa Ana winds.  Here in 2008, some of the sprints and the jumps were hampered by the unusual marine layer that never did leave and by temperatures that seemed to only decrease as the day wore on.  Either way, we still got to see some incredible action!  We're still awaiting final results, but here are some of the highlights...

***Rancho Verde's girls may have graduated some of the fastest sprinters in county history, but they have reloaded.  They've moved Alycia Herring over to the 300 hurdles and seem even more balanced than ever before.  They easily won both relays and dominated the sprints, hurdles and jumps!  Brittany Bozeman and Herring both flew out over 18 feet to dominate the long jump!  Meanwhile, their boys have also stepped up as they won both relays and looked very strong across the board.

***Vista Murrieta continues to produce one of, if not, THE finest programs in the county.  With 385 athletes, they are simply loaded in all directions.  They had four boys go under 4:37 in the 1600m and 10:05 in the 3200.  Noe Ramirez simply looked incredible in winning 3200 along with impressive doubles turned in by David McDonald and Chase Welch.  Oh yeah, rumors have it that they have some field athletes as well....!!! 

***Corona's Raul Arcos surprised us with his impressive 1:57.27 in the 800 meters.  Decided to enter the event that morning, he went 60.1-57.1 splits!  He also led his 4x800 squad to a victory.  After going 9:51 in the 3200 later that day, he turned around and pulled a 52 split for his 1600 relay squad.  Corona also had two sophomores and a freshman go under 4:40 in the 1600 and Michael Gauger turning around to hold off Vista Murrieta's Drew Dalton for 10:00-10:01 victory. 

***Chaparral's Dynamic Duo in Sierra Vega and Vianna Hochstrasser put together one of the finest double's we witnessed in quite awhile.  Both went under 5:18 in the 1600m and literally ran stride for stride the entire 3200 meters in easily going 1-2 with marks around 11:26!   While Chaparral's Kristen Powers was nursing an aggravated hamstring, her brother stole the show in  both hurdles.  He came away with impressive victories with his times being in the low 15's and low 40's. 

We'll update you all with more as soon as we receive complete results!