The MileSplitCA Virtual Senior-Only State Championship came to an end over the weekend with the posting of final State Meet results for girls and boys.
This series of articles, tagged 2020 CA Senior State Championship, was designed to recognize only seniors throughout what, in normal times, would have been the post-season progression through section CIF meets and qualifiers through to the State Meet. As series producer Jeff George wrote in his initial post, "we can't give back what was lost, but we can at least shine the spotlight on the stars (both known and emerging) from this year's senior class."
Based on previous marks and some projections, seniors were recognized at the section level in individual articles and qualified through to the State Meet level. The top eight projected scorers for each individual event in place order were announced over the weekend.
Here's a breakdown of the Senior State Championship results with a hub link to all articles in the series below.
In the Girls Senior-Only Virtual State Finals, Rachel Glenn led Long Beach Wilson to the overall team title. The uber-talented South Carolina recruit was the top placer in the high jump, the 300 hurdles and was second in the 100m hurdles.
As a sophomore on the track, Glenn shared the CIF-State Meet title in the high jump. Last spring, she won the 300mH title, placed second in the high jump and ran a leg on Wilson's 4x4 relay that placed fourth. Glenn's two wins and one runner-up finish in the Virtual Championship earned Wilson 28 points in the standard 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 scoring format.
Great Oak (SS), with four scorers across three events earned 19 points for second. Carondelet (NC) and Sheldon (SJ), each with 18 points, tied for third, and Buchanan (CS), the 2019 girls team champion on the track, collected 17 points for fifth.
In all, 78 schools had at least one point in the girls Virtual Senior Championship.
Great Oak's points were accumulated mostly in the distances with Tori Gaitan and Arianna Griffiths going 2-4 in the 1600m and Audrey Dang adding a point in the 3200m. Adding to the accumulation that pushed the Wolfpack into the runner-up team spot was Kaitlyn Swenson, who placed fourth in the pole vault.
Imani Dupree accounted for all of the points for Sheldon with a win in the 100m and a runner-up finish in the 200m. Carondelet got its 18 points from the duo of Kelley Kern, who won the pole vault, and Aryel Coats, who placed fourth in the long jump and sixth in the 100m. Kern, was a two-time State Meet finals participant in the pole vault who place fourth in 2019. Coats was ninth in the long jump as a junior.
Glenn was the only multi-event winner and one of 19 who scored in more than one event. Here are the others:
- Taylor Shorter accounted for all of Norco's 16 points by winning the 100m hurdles and placing third in the the 300m hurdles. The Cougars tied for sixth with Woodbridge. Shorter was fourth in the 100m hurdles at the 2019 CIF-State Championships as the only 2020 in that field and she was a close second to Glenn in the 300mH final.
- Gabrielle Spencer (Stockton Franklin/SJ) was second in the 100m and fifth in the 200m. Spencer was a 100m State Meet finalist as a junior.
- Nia Mosby (The Archer School/SS) was third in both the 200m and 400m. Mosby was a State Meet finalist in the 200m as a junior, placing seventh.
- Ceonna Pipion (Vista del Lago/SJ), who was second in the 400m and fourth in the 200m as VdL tied for eighth with Menlo (CC). Pipion was a State Meet finalist in both the 200 and 400 as a junior, placing third in the 400m.
- Madison Lyon (Woodbridge/SS) won the triple jump and placed third in the long jump earning Woodbridge a share of sixth place. She was sixth in the triple jump at the State Meet as a junior.
- Jazmin Jackson (Chaminade/SS) was fifth in the 100m hurdles and sixth in the high jump.
- Sophia Hartwell (Orange Lutheran/SS) won the long jump and earned an eighth-place point in the triple jump.
- Melisa Toilolo (Merrill West/SJ) won the shot put and placed sixth in the discus throw. She was seventh in the shot put as a junior at the State Meet an the only girl in the class of 2020 to make the final of either of the throws last spring.
- Jade Whitfield (Mt. Whitney/CS) won the discus throw and placed eighth in the shot put.
- Airiana Dargan (Concord/NC) placed fourth in the triple jump and fifth in the long jump. At the 2019 State Championships, Dargan placed fourth in the triple jump and 10th in the long jump.
- Kalani Hardyway (Oceansinde/SD) placed sixth in the long jump and eighth in the triple jump.
- Ryann O'Bannon (Lakewood St. Joseph/SS) placed fifth in the high jump and seventh in the long jump.
- Kaiya Johnson (El Cerrito/NC) placed fifth 400m and eighth in the 200m.
- Sameerah Evans (Vallejo/NC) was second in the triple jump and fourth in the 100m hurdles.
- Chrystal Aluya (Placentia Valencia/SS) was fourth in the 100 and seventh in the 200.
- Anisa Rind (Dana Hills/SS) was sixth in both the 200m and 400m.
Other Girls Championship Notes
- Egbe Ndip-Agbor (Corona/SS), the 200m seniors-only virtual champion, placed eighth at the CIF-State finals as a junior. She also was a two-time State Meet qualifier in the 400m, placing 10th in the prelims each year.
- Iman Babineaux (Quartz Hill/SS), the 400m seniors-only virtual champion, placed fourth at the outdoor State Championships as a junior, 0.22 behind Pipion.
- Charlotte Tomkinson (Menlo/CC), the virtual 800m champion, placed second on the track as a junior after placing sixth at the State Final as a sophomore. Also in that race, Isabella Fauria (Sacramento St. Francis/SJ), was fourth as a junior, Hannah Wilson (Oaks Christian/SS) was fifth and Tomkinson's teammate Kyra Pretre was also in the 2019 championship field.
- In stark contrast to the 800m, none of the girls in the virtual 1600m final were in the field last spring where no one from the class of 2020 made the final. Our senior-only virtual winner is Whitney Valenti (Brea Olinda/SS), who hit PRs across the board last spring and continued that during cross. In only one meet of 2020, she split 3:40 on a 1200m DMR leg.
- Corie Smith (Buchanan/CS) won the virtual 3200m title a year after placing second on the track (running a 10:17.39 PR). Smith was eighth in the State Meet 3200m as a sophomore and seventh as a freshman.
- Victoria Plummer (Moorpark/SS), second to Glenn in the high jump here, was third at the State Meet as a junior and eighth as a freshman.