Corona High Track & Field: Welcome
This website is dedicated to the hard working student athletes and the parents that comprise Corona High Track & Field. Corona High is one of the oldest and tradition rich high schools in the Inland Empire. Corona High School includes a little over 3200 students and competes in Division I for Track & Field. In his 8th season as Head Coach, Mark Gardner is gifted with a coaching staff that includes Ryan Tucker and Shane Wiley (throws), Tony Nixon (girls' sprints), Robert Fitch (boys' sprints), Mike Ewing (jumps), Rydell Style (hurdles) and Dennis Stetson (pole vault)! Former Booster Club President, John Mynes, is also very instrumental in assisting us in all facets of our program! The Athletic Director is Mr. Jim Perry while the principal is Mr. Owen Crosby.
There's a lot of blood, sweat and guts between dreams and success.
It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves
Stetson Peaks at Masters Meet
Being our first female to qualify for the Southern Section Masters Meet since 2004, sophomore Devin Stetson stepped it up in huge fashion and set another school record in the Pole Vault! Looking back through the history books, she also looks to be our first female to ever qualify for this meet (state qualifying meet) in a field event. Under windy and cold conditions, the great effort was only more magnified.
With great timing, she had the best progression of any athlete in our program this past season. She patiently worked her way through 10-6 in the middle of the season, won the Big VIII League Title at 10-9, stepped up for an 11-0 effort at last weekend's CIF Finals only to outdo herself with a solid 11-2 effort. Going in ranked outside the Top 10 here, Devin tied for 6th place overall. Meanwhile, her three attempts at 11-8 were solid as she just missed making it to next weekend's California State Championships. Of the five girls ahead of her, only two were underclassmen as she ends the season tied as the #3 sophomore in all of California!
GREAT JOB DEVIN!!!!!
Division I CIF Prelims
After advancing through one of the toughest and most competitive leagues in California, we sent a solid group of athletes down to Trabuco Hills High School to compete at the Division I CIF Prelims. With the hope of being one of the top nine athletes to advance to the following week's CIF Finals, it becomes a humbling experience as you compete against some of the best in the United States.
After a long afternoon, Corona High advanced four athletes forward to next week's Finals at Mt. San Antonio College. With three of them being underclassmen, this will be their first time. Meanwhile, senior Venus Shabgahi advanced for the 2nd straight season. Despite being 3rd in her heat, she ended up running the 6th fastest time of the day. Being in the fastest heat, she was only a second away from the 3rd fastest time. Advancing to CIF for the first time, we were very proud of how Devin Stetson, Nolan Kelly, and Ben Echeverria all advanced under the high pressure experience. After a frustrating freshman season, Stetson was one of nine girls to clear 10-9 and move on as the youngest entrant. Kelly, a junior, was heavily favored to move on, and after missing his first two attempts at 6-4, he finally got us all to relax with his clearance on his last attempt. Finally, Echeverria kept his cool and threw the 6th best mark in the Discus as he is only one of three underclassmen to advance.
Junior Mary Fusi had a tough afternoon but leaves with one of the most successful seasons of any female thrower in school history. Freshman Kayla Zempoalteca finishes up as one of the top freshman in California for the discus. Senior Emily Kaplan did not advance, but leaves us with a new school record in the Triple Jump. Junior Jack Miller now has the CIF postseason experience under his belt for next season as well as junior Miki Ewing. Senior Samy Hammad, in his first season out, finished a great season in the High Jump. Sophomore Cydney Powell put behind a very frustrating season while she looks to rebound next year and get back to the CIF Finals in the 400 meters. Finally, we look forward to the promising futures of seniors Julian Hernandez and Garrett Williams as both missed advancing in the 3200 meters.
Back in the days of the old Mountain View League, individual league titles came much easier than they do now that we compete in the much tougher Big VIII League! So, we truly embrace the day where we have four varsity league titles all in the matter of an hour! We begin with junior Nolan Kelly. Going in as the heavy favorite to win the league title, Nolan exceeded expectations by clearing 6'6" and catapulting himself to a new Big VIII League record as well as now being tied for 1st in Riverside County. This is also the 2nd best effort in school history. Great job Nolan. The next three league titles were earned by athletes not expected to win, which made the afternoon that much more eventful. Sophomore Devin Stetson had been #3 in the league, (but also #3 in the county!), and emerged to the victory with a 10'9" clearance. She won by having no misses after clearing 10'9" - after the frustration of not qualifying as a freshman to the jubilation of earning a league title one year later.... Behind the stands, history was taking place in the throwing rings. Junior Ben Echeverria was undefeated in league this year, but had the 2nd best mark going in. With a great series of throws, he came up with a 8+ foot personal best, 153'2" to win the league title by a mere two inches! And not to be overlooked, also coming in as the #2 seed, junior Mary Fusi brings home a league title patch in the Girls Shot Put as she has been so consistent this season. We also earned three junior varsity league titles in Karsen Meerkreebs (pole vault), Elijah Dragswolf (high jump) and Kelly Zelaya (shot put). All in all, a solid afternoon where most projected qualifiers moved forward to Thursday's Big VIII League Finals.
On Thursday, the league title patches did not come as easy. All the same, we experienced some great record setting efforts. Working her way to CIF and setting a school record in the process, senior Emily Kaplan came up HUGE! Her 35'8.25" effort in the triple jump is a NEW SCHOOL RECORD! This had been her biggest goal all season long so it was great to see her accomplish after two months of frustration. Sticking with the field events, junior Mary Fusi stepped up to the ring and earned herself another league title! Her 123'3" mark is the #2 mark in school history but she had to leapfrog the incredible effort from freshman Kayla Zempoalteca. After setting a new personal best on her first attempt, she proceeded to set more pr's en route to a 120 foot 3rd place effort, which is #3 in school history! Senior Deison Afualo ended a great senior year by just missing CIF, with a 118'2" effort, only a foot short of the at-large standard. Disapppointed for not winning league titles, senior Venus Shabgahi (800) and sophomore Cydney Powell (400) setlled for 2nd place patches. They do move forward and considering how their training has been so disrupted the past several weeks, both understand that they have much better races ahead of them. Junior Issac Soloman came on very well here these last two weeks with his junior varsity league title in the Triple Jump.
We will type more soon enough....
Julian Hernandez - 2nd place (3200)
Jack Miller - 2nd place (300 Hurdles)
Garrett Williams - 3rd place (3200)
Miki Ewing - 3rd place (High Jump)
Ben Echeverria - 3rd place (Shot Put)
TEAM PICTURES ARE THIS FRIDAY!!!!! Uniforms will be returned!
2nd Annual Corona-Norco Frosh/Soph Showdown
In our second year hosting our end of the season invitational specifically geared towards 9th and 10th graders, we brought the show to Corona High after hosting it at Norco last year. With the invite catering to the athletes that may not be competing at the respective league finals, it gave our future stars their own stage in which to shine on. With most invitationals lasting all day, we were done by 1:15 pm.
We witnessed a great deal of personal bests as Coach Nixon's young girls' crew posted many personal bests for the season, especially in the 200 and 400. With that in mind, our girls took home the 2nd place trophy. On the boys side, many personal bests were recorded by our young ones in the 1600 meters as we've seen some great improvement over the past two months from these young men!
Results: http://finishedresults.com/content/corona-norco-fs-showdown-results-0
We want to thank all of the parents that helped us as well as the juniors and seniors that did show up to assist. Special thanks to those distance runners that became our hurdle and block crew before leaving to get ready for Prom. A HUGE thank you goes out to the Booster Club that helped with the organization of the snack bar, the medals and Clerking the meet.
We ended the season on a high note of sorts. In a great dual meet with Riverside Poly, our boys ended up in a tie, 68-68. A tie in Track & Field is incredibly rare. But, their boys outscored us 16-2 in the final two field events and then outkicked us on the last leg of the 4x400 relay to secure the tie and come from behind as the Bears scored 21 of the last 23 points of the meet. What would seem to many as a disappointment actually secured 2nd place in the Big VIII League for our boys. If the boys had lost, it would have meant a 3-way tie, but instead, on the surprise of our throwers and the strength of a 27-0 scoring gap from the distance boys - we were able to emerge with a tie. Going into the season, we were projected to be fighting for 4th place in league but rather came away with an impressive 2nd place team finish. Ben Echeverria's victories in both throws while our distance boys being asked to sweep all three distances were the huge keys here!
Our girls easily cruised to a 107-29 victory! But, THE highlight of the meet was that of Devin Stetson. Our young sophomore finally got over the 11 foot bar after a multitude of close attempts. This is the #12 all-time mark in Riverside County while she obviously breaks her own school record. Most of the other marks were par for the course, so to speak, but definitely have our girls ready for next week's league finals!
Norco Dual Meet
As the season begins to wind down, and with only two weeks remaining, ...
We hosted Centennial last week. It does seem anticlimatic since our most competitive ...
School Records Set at Arcadia Invitational
In surprising fashion, our boys set a new school record in the 4x800 relay. With a great opening leg by Julian Hernandez, Jimmy Gauger and Garrett Williams produced huge two second personal bests while Ryan Fierro secured the school record with his anchor leg. Their time is now the 12th fastest time in Riverside County history. This same group came back the following day to run the 3rd fastest time in school history for the Distance Medley Relay for a nice 2nd place finish in the day session. This mark places them in the Top 25 all-time for our county.
Going into the meet, we were focusing on our Girls Sprint Medley Relay. Last year, we finished 4th place in the highly competitive Invitational Heat (fastest) and we followed that up once again. With that same exacr group from 2011, we ran four seconds faster and actually broke the Riverside County record for the event. Sick and barely able to race, Cydney Powell moved us up from 7th place to 4th on her leg while the ever reliable Venus Shabgahi brought us home to the 10th fastest time in the United States for this event. Meanwhile, our girls 4x800 team just missed our school record from last year while we witnessed some nice 2:23-2:24 personal bests from Suzanna Aguilar and Kristen Ellingson. Their time is now the 10th fastest time in Riverside County history.
Individually, it was a very humbling experience for our athletes that competed but the highlight came from Julian Hernandez' victory in the Saturday morning Mile. Unable to achieve his goal of breaking 4:20 due to a very slow paced first two laps, he still held on the 1st place medal and a new personal best.
We host Centennial this upcoming Thursday. The following week we host Norco while we are looking to bring a huge group to the Inland Empire Championships on April 21st. We will be posting entries for the IEC this week.
Our only dual meet for 2012 that we are weren't hosting went according ...
In splitting up our squads this past Saturday, ...
So, So Close...
We will provide more highlights soon enough...
On the boys side, with several tough breaks in our boys' sprints over the previous week, we were never able to compete with the talent of Roosevelt. They have become one of the best squads in all of California and you have to tip your cap to them. They will easily cruise to their 4th straight league title while we are the strong favorites to secure 2nd place in the tough Big VIII League. Our boys are still ranked amongst the top eight squads in Riverside County as we look forward to seeing how much our boys improve over the remaining six weeks of the season.
Rare Sweep over ML King
On the boys' side, we were able to outlast ML King 83-53. Due to their top distance kids not being able to compete, the score became lop sided early on as we anticipated a much closer contest. At one point, our boys were ahead 55-22 while King scored the last 14 points on the day. We were able to sweep the 800 and 1600 meters (Julian Hernandez with both victories) while our throwers scored 16-2 in their events. Ben Echevarria won both throws, highlighted by his 141-2 personal best that catapults him into our Hall of Fame. Justin Lantz' 46 foot Shot Put was a 3+ foot personal best for him! Nolan Kelly continues to consistently soar over the 6-4 bar with another High Jump victory while our sprints managed an impressive 22-5 showing. Gerry Lewis shined in the sprints as he also anchored our winning 4x100 relay team. Jack Miller continues to improve as he rolled to a nice 40.48 time in the 300 Hurdles after coming off his victory in the 400 meters. All in all, a very nice day as we're very proud of all of our athletes and how well they respected the scene with class there at the end with that tense high jump competition.
We were able to overcome a fierce and well coached opponent today in the Wolves from ML King High. Next week will not be so easy. The Mustangs of Roosevelt roll into our stadium and will bring their 'A' game, knowing that a possible league title could be on the line. Both of Roosevelt's squads are ranked #2 in Riverside County while some of their relay squads and athletes are nationally ranked.
PLEASE TURN IN ALL OF YOUR FUNDRAISING FOLKS! Do not wait until Saturday's Car Wash to do so.... We truly appreciate any donations you can help provide to help make this 2012 season even better.
Our Girls Sprint Medley Relay Team is #1 in all of California and #6 in the United States after the first two weekends of competition! Amber Lambert, Amanda Gonzalez, Cydney Powell and Venus Shabgahi - this group will look to break last year's school record next month at the Arcadia Invitational.
SPRING BREAK WORKOUTS
With a number of athletes missing the meet due to the SAT's along with allowing others to nurse and heal, we were pleasantly surprised that we walked away with two team trophies in competing at the 38th Annual Norco Chet Nicholson Relays. While giving a lot of our rookies glimpses of a Saturday Invite, our girls came home with a 2nd place trophy. Meanwhile, our boys took home the 3rd place trophy, albiet only one point away from 2nd place!
For the boys, junior Nolan Kelly continues to impress here early on. With him just coming out from basketball, he has jumped to new heights in the High Jump. His 6'4" effort places him amongst the top three in school history while he some great attempts at 6'5!
On the girls side, junior Mary Fusi was our Athlete of the Meet with her 36'8.5" effort in the Shot Put along with her 110'5" mark in the discus. She helped lead our girls to 1st place as a team in the Shot Put while earning 2nd place in the discus.
Top Boys' Relay Groups
We will update the website more in the morning! Great job to all of our athletes!
Nice Start to the ...
After a long and unseasonably warm winter day in Chino, Corona High attended the 2nd Annual Ontario Relays. With incredible patience, we witnessed some great efforts while most of our athletes earned tons of medals to start off the season. We set several new meet records while coming home with a number of 1st and 2nd place finishes.
The highlight of the meet was our girls' Sprint Medley Relay which ran away with a sub 4:15 effort which is just off of our school record effort from 2011. Cydney Powell and Venus Shabgahi put out some great efforts to secure one of the better relay SMR times in the state, Our girls also came home with the victory in the 4x400 relay with close 2nd place finishes in the 4x1600 Relay, the 4x800 and the Distance Medley Relay.
The boys did very well as we have definitely improved in the last few weeks. We ran away with victories in the 4x1600 and the Distance Medley Relay while earning a close 2nd place in the 4x800. Julian Hernandez impressed along with Garrett Williams and David Aguilar to lead these squads.
Alumni Watch
Last weekend, our very own Raul Arcos cruised to a 14:16 victory at the Lancer 5k held in Riverside!
Alan Cuevas is getting ready for his first full season for Chino State http://www.chicowildcats.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=1797&path=mtrack
Michael Gauger is also putting in a solid freshman campaign over at UC Riverside! http://www.gohighlanders.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=1956
We hosted our 1st Annual Panther Parlaufs last Saturday! In a unique, European style relay which features five athletes competing over the course 8 x 200, we witnessed some impressive and eye popping relay efforts from many of our athletes! In the past, we had traveled far away to compete in a similiar invite but wanted to bring the idea closer to home and to schools in the Inland Empire.
Anticipated as a smaller, low key first year affair, we were pleasantly surprised by the turnout and the overall effort from so many other schools as well. We cannot wait to see how many schools join us in 2013!
In the end, the highlight of the morning was our varsity boys distance studs coming from behind to claim the victory. Their impressive time of 19:03 was only two seconds off of the school record. JW North boasts a strong crew that will represent their 4x400 squad as they led for most of the race. But, the endurance strength of our boys took over on the two final legs to win by a mere four seconds. Jimmy Gauger, Garrett Williams, Ryan Fierro, David Aguilar and Julian Hernandez represented and by their 6th leg, the home crowd realized that we were closing the gap and truly helped in bringing these boys the victory.
Our girls ran to one of their best efforts in school history as well but were not able to catch the strong crew of Long Beach Wilson! LBW claimed a huge lead in the early going and despite the strong efforts from Venus Shabgahi and Alicia Williams, we closed the gap but ran out of real estate. Nathalie and Suzanna Aguilar along with Marisa Boren put out great efforts as well. They were 3rd throughout most of the race but took 2nd place on the 6th leg. This was just short of our school record effort from last year.
We were so proud of all of our teams that competed - great job and way to make this inaugural event a great one! We featured four seniors on both of our 'A' teams, so we're looking forward to see which kids step into these roles in 2013.
100 Mile Club Comes to Corona High
We are proud to announce that Corona High Track & Field is teaming with the folks from the 100 Mile Club! We will host 100 mile community walks EVERY Tuesday night from 6:00 pm until 7:30 pm in the stadium with music.
Athletes will help us with this effort while we want to invite all families along with their kids that are looking to obtain their miles in their quest for 100 Miles! Go to http://www.facebook.com/#!/100mileclub or http://100mileclub.com/ for more information.
Centennial Dual Meet
We had more entries accepted than ever before in this year's 2012 Arcadia Invitational. In what used to be another weekend invitational has turned into the most competitive and talented invite in the United States over the past 20 years. Athletes fly in from all over the nation while even other nations are represented at this incredible two day affair. This invite witnesses better performances then we see at our own California State Meet. At the same time, our most talented athletes are often humbled by the level of competition.
Santiago Dual Meet
Successful Weekend Begins Spring Break
We thought last year's 2011 dual meet vs. Roosevelt could not provide more suspense as we came up just short with a 69.5-66.5 defeat. Then, last week - the drama of the high jump created in our 69-67 victory over ML King seemed to outtrump that meet. Well, we were wrong. Our girls gave it all they had but came up short against the Mustangs of Roosevelt, 69-67. Facing an opponent that includes one of the fastest sprint crew in the nation along with one of the best hurdlers in the state while boasting a much improved distance group - we simply did not have enough in the end.
Poise Under Pressure - Miki Ewing in the High Jump
In one of the more exciting and anticipated dual meets in sometime, ML King traveled over to our stadium for a competive Big VIII matchup. We knew it would be close and we had it coming down to the last relay. But in rare fashion, the girls' meet was NOT over at the conclusion of the 4x400 relay. With several of our top girls sick and unable to run the last relay, we were not able to close out the scoring on the track. So, both squads traveled over to watch the end of the high jump competition with the score having us ahead 65-62. With ML King's Asia Johnson ascending the bar and winning the event, we had to look to the scoring sheets to see that Miki Ewing and Claudia Rodriguez had secured 2nd and 3rd place. Claudia was able to clear her height on her 2nd attempt while the two ML King girls did not do so until their 3rd attempts - it goes to show you how the sport can come down to inches (or even less). Those four crucial points were enough to lead us to a narrow and hardfought 69-67 victory. This is the first time in four chances that we've been able to defeat the always tough ML King girls' squad. Perhaps the hero of the meet was Venus Shabgahi as she won two races while also finishing right alongside teammate Alicia Williams in the 3200 for 2nd place. Venus earned 13 points and even offered to step in for us on that 4x400 relay if needed. Mary Fusi continues to improve on a weekly basis as she now holds the 2nd best Discus mark in school history (117-3.5)! She led the girls' throwers to a great day as we had four girls clear 104 feet while she also won the Shot Put. Sick since last week and unable to train, Cydney Powell gave it her all with a victory in the 400 and 2nd place in the 200. Emily Kaplan also earned us two 2nd places as well which truly helped when all of the points were added up.
**Distance Crew will go at 7:30 am. If you are unable to make any days - email Coach Gardner.
**Girls Sprints will go at 8:00 am.
**Boys Sprints and all jumpers will go at 3:00 pm.
High Jump - 1st place
Sprint Medley Relay - 1st place
4 x 1600 - 2nd place
4 x 100 - 2nd place
Long Jump - 3rd place
Discus - 3rd place
Top Girls' Relay Groups
Shot Put - 1st place
4 x 800 - 1st place
Discus - 2nd place
4 x 200 - 2nd place
Pole Vault - 2nd place
4 x 1600 - 3rd place
8 x 200 - 3rd place
Triple Jump - 3rd place
JW North Dual Meet
Here's a great link on alumni Chase Williams. Chase continues to improve and lead a very successful running career over at Cal Baptist University. He just got back from Indiana after a very successful weeekend. http://www.cbulancers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=205385337&DB_OEM_ID=8100
This is a great opportunity for all of you to get an overview of the different offered in Track & Field. The movie is 108k and should take no more than 1 minute to download over a 56k modem. It is designed to be played on computers with at least a 400Mhz processor and users with slower machines may experience performance problems. If the game appears to be running slowly try closing down any other applications you may be running. CAN YOU TOP 10,000 points???
Want to be amongst the best high school athletes in Riverside County History? Would you like to see YOUR NAME under our Corona High Track & Field "Hall of Fame" list? Click the title to see the best marks in the history of our county! All of this work was put together by Corona's former Athletic Director Don Chadez and gets updated on a yearly basis by Coach Gardner.
