Track and field: Spanish River, Park Vista split spoils to headline district action

Host site Park Vista and annual favorites Spanish River split the spoils in Monday's district championship track and field meet, with the Cobras girls and Sharks boys squads taking home the prized hardware.

With district championships wrapping up this week, teams across the county learn which of their student-athletes will earn the opportunity to qualify for the stat tournament, which opens up with regional meets.

Park Vista girls show dramatic improvement in large-margin victory

It was quite the improvement for the Lady Cobras.

In scoring 230 points to take home the gold this year, Park Vista beat their total from districts last season by over 60 points, a feat head coach Kristina Kirk says is a result of both upping the ante with strength training and having student-athletes try out all the events early in the year, just to try things out.

Well, both of those ideas have paid dividends. Despite having just a few seniors across both their boys and girls team, the Cobras went from having zero qualifiers in a number of events to putting people on the podium this time around.

"A lot of the girls ended up doing better than their original seeds going into the district meet, so that was exciting for us," Kirk said. "At the beginning of the season, I said, 'we're going to go through try-outs and everybody is going to attempt everything,' and they all looked at me funny."

"You never know, you might try something new and find something you're good at," she told them.

Though the result was athletes performing some events this year for the first time in their careers, the proof is in the pudding.

"I want to talk about our throwers for a second," Kirk said with a touch of pride. "Our girls swept the podium, top three, in discus yesterday. In shot-put, we finished second and third for the girls, and javelin for the girls, we finished first, second, and fourth."

Jannelle Hernandez posted a new personal record and tallied a first place finish in the discus, throwing it 29.05 meters, which put her ahead of teammates Laila Estime and Sasha St. Cyr, who claimed the next two spots.

Though the girls team won, the boys also gave Spanish River some fight in a number of events, placing third. Some of that success was due to the trio of Chase Bureau, who placed first throwing it 52.06 meters, Aidan Meder, and Dennis Torrijos landing another Cobras podium sweep in the men's javelin throw.

"Bureau broke the school record at the beginning of the season and he's broken it every single meet in in a row except for one in the javelin," Kirk said. "So he's broken it like nine times now."

All said, the tremendous success from a young team in Kirk's first year as the Cobras coach speaks volumes to the success Park Vista is primed for in years to come. First things are first, though, and that's regionals up next.

Spanish River boys dominate as district favorites

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the Spanish River boys track and field program once again showed their skills in a district finals win.

Adopting head coach Doug Horn's team sport policy -- where competing and winning is paramount -- the Sharks put up a 223.5 point performance, 85 points clear of second-place Park Vista.

"I was very pleased from the standpoint that we had very balanced scoring," Horn said. "From sprints, from middle distance, and from some of the field event -- we had the boys winner in the pole-vault, we had some strong performances in some of the throws, and we had pretty dominating performances in the middle distance."

"It was what I like to call a total team win," he said. "We like that. I think that's the strength of our team, that we're able to maintain a lot of balance."

Blake Wallace claimed max points in the 100-meter dash with an 11.12 time, while Max Cescato, Daniel Reyes, and Casey Sangely placed first, second, and fourth respectively in the 800-meter event.

The Sharks didn't leave much room for argument in the longer track events, either, sweeping the 1600-meter run while placing first and second in the 3200 meter, thanks to efforts from Preston Sangely, Elijah Rand, Maccabee Harad and Braden Langmaack.

Laney Williams was her usual self for the girls squad, which placed second behind Park Vista, winning the 1600-meter and 3200-meter events.

With regionals up next, Horn goes back to that winning philosopohy.

"Championship season is the time when we really get to see what people are all about," he said. It's not about times. If you finish in first place and you run your slowest time of the season, who cares? Nobody will remember how fast you ran in the championship, but they will remember that you won it."

Other district winners

4A-District 11

Boys: Dwyer, 226.5 points

Girls: Dwyer, 185.5 points

1A-District 13

Boys: Benjamin, 346.66 points

Girls: Benjamin, 308 points

3A-District 14

Boys: Dillard, 130.5 points

Girls: Dillard, 223 points

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Park Vista, Spanish River take home trophies in district track meet