Marcell Francis Mitchell, Lamarr Kirk Jr., and Kaylin Edwards (l-r) represent the state's elite relay teams emerging from the Moore League heading into the Southern Section Division 1 Finals.
CIF-Southern Section All-Division Finals
At Moorpark HS
Field at 10:30 a.m., Track at 1 p.m.
LONG BEACH -- The names and the years change, but when the CIF-Southern Section's Division championship meet arrives Saturday at Moorpark High School, familiar schools from a familiar league will be competing in 4x100 and 4x400 relay races and they'll get plenty of attention.
"Our league (finals) may be as tough to get out of as CIF," says veteran Poly track assistant coach Keith Anderson, who works closely with Poly's relay teams. "Our kids have to stay sharp. There's no luxury of a letdown at league finals."
The boys 4x100 qualifiers from last week's Division I preliminaries are Long Beach Jordan (42.08, fifth among prelim qualifying teams) and Long Beach Poly (42.27, seventh). The girls 4x100 qualifiers are Long Beach Wilson (46.82, top prelims time), Poly (47.12 prelims heat winner, third overall) and Lakewood (47.29, heat winner, fifth overall).
Long Beach has a lock on the state's best 4x400 relay times to date -- the Poly boys and Wilson girls -- and both easily moved on to the division finals. Wilson was the top finisher in both boys and girls 4x400 prelims with heat wins and Poly, running in a separate heat, won that and was the boys runner-up and qualified seventh in the girls race.
The point is that the Moore League's best track and field teams are once again competing for championships. The relays are as good as any indicator of a team's success because the participants are often solid in individual events, too, yet come together for the relay team. And, if past history holds true, divisional success is a catalyst to reach and triumph at the CIF-State Championships later this month.
Poly's boys have been CIF-Southern Section Division I champion in the 4x100 relay 13 times since 1998 and 11 times in the 4x400 since 1999. Wilson's 4x400 relay has won the Division I title the past two years. On the girls side, Poly is the defending 4x100 relay champion among its 13 Division I titles since 1999. Wilson's 4x100 relay last won it in 2021 and has eight divisional titles since 1994. Wilson's girls 4x400 has won the past two divisional titles and five dating back to 1996. Poly's 4x400 girls have 18 division titles since 1993.
CIF meets are the pathway to the State Meet, but Moore League teams think differently and earlier about postseason preparation -- and for good reason.
The Moore League Finals, held April 27 this year at Wilson, served as the official start of the postseason for those who compete in it -- the current configuration is Poly, Wilson, Jordan, Millikan, Lakewood, Cabrillo and Compton.
MOORE LEAGUE FINALS INTERVIEWS
Do well at the Moore League finals and it can boost your confidence for the month-long push through CIF preliminaries, division finals, Masters Meet and State.
Xai Ricks, a junior who runs anchor on Poly boys' 4x400 relay, will also be running in the 200 and 400 individual races in the Division I finals. His efforts have been a highlight all season, regardless of what he runs -- including the new CIF official event, the 4x800 relay -- but the Moore League Finals helped him establish his postseason focus.
"Moore League finals is big. There's a lot of great athletes and it's one of the hardest leagues to come out of," says Ricks, who won the Moore League 400 title in 47.14 and lowered it to 47.04 at last week's prelims to win his heat and enter the division finals as the top Southern Section Division 1 runner.
Ricks finished second in the Moore League 200 in 21.31 behind winner Jordan Washington of Jordan, but ran a faster time in the prelims, a wind-aided 21.10 in his heat to edge out Washington, who ran 21.18, to also win a wind-aided heat.
CIF-SS DIVISION I PRELIMS INTERVIEWS
Ricks ran on Poly's Moore League-winning 4x400 relay (3:16.05), but the Jackrabbits' best time came at the mid-April Mt. San Antonio College Relays in 3:14.26. Poly's 4x400, which also consists of freshman Noah Smith, sophomore Caliph Johnson, and senior Lamarr Kirk Jr., went 3:21.10 at the prelims.
Wilson, meanwhile, countered with a 3:18.48 for the lowest 4x400 heat-winning time at the prelims with Diego Alvarado, Jae'Ron Harris, Marcell Francis Mitchell, and JT Kraemer. At the Moore League Finals, Wilson went 3:17.08 to finish one second off behind Poly.
One of the payoffs at the Division I final should be seeing Poly and Wilson go head-to-head for CIF supremacy and likely in the Masters Meet and, potentially, at State. Wilson has won the last two Division I titles and was Masters champion in 2019. Poly has not won the 4x400 Division I title since 2014.
For Wilson's girls 4x400 relay, the team of Brooke Blue, MaNia Tidwell, Aujane Luckey and Kaylin Edwards, has been a force to reckon with all season. When they achieved their season- and state-best time of 3:46.02 at the Texas Relays at the end of March, it set the bar high for others, but they want to keep it going.
Wilson's mentality is to make sure athletes know the expectation is to be at their best each time they compete. The Moore League Finals, dual meets and various opportunities to compete in championship level invitationals throughout California and, this year, in Idaho, Texas and Oregon, ensure top-notch competition. In turn, when CIF meets arrive, the consistent challenges presented along the way gives Wilson athletes a mentally tougher edge. They need to be ready and know what they need to do.
After winning the 4x400 at the Mt. SAC Relays in 3:46.74, the closest they've been to their Texas Relays time, Blue, Tidwell, Luckey and Edwards acknowledged what they had accomplished and expressed a desire to achieve more by season's end.
"This race made me feel confident in that we're being consistent in dropping our time and want to go faster and harder," said Tidwell, who enters the CIF divisional meet in the 4x100 and 4x400 relays and will vie individually in the 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles. "(Winning the 4x400) is very satisfying and I think it shows that our team has the drive to execute our race and try and sprint the whole thing."
Luckey, who also qualified individually in the 200 and 400 and as part of the 4x100 and 4x400 for Saturday's division finals, said at the time that the 4x400 relay "gives me a bigger mindset to work harder, be stronger and to keep pushing to get to where we want to be."
The Bruins ran 3:50.55 to win the Moore League 4x400 title by more than two seconds over runner-up Poly (3:52.68). Wilson ran 3:51.02 at the CIF prelims to finish atop the division final qualifiers. Poly went 3:57.85 to also advance.
Given the success of Wilson and Poly in boys and girls relays, notably fast events, one might wonder if someone else will shine in the 4x800 relay. CIF-Central Section's Buchanan of Clovis, a top distance running program, holds the current season's top mark at 7:43.84 for the boys and 8:59.12 for the girls.
While Wilson's girls currently rank 18th best at 9:32.59, the highest among Moore League girls teams, the league does shine brightly on the boys side. Poly's boys are second in the state and tops in the Southern Section with a 7:44.90. Wilson's boys 4x800 is second in the section and third in the state at 7:45.51.
Poly's Anderson, a veteran Poly coach, said he's excited to see what his runners can do in the 4x800. One only has to point to June 2011 at the New Balance Outdoor Nationals in Greensboro N.C. when he witnessed Poly's all-senior 4x800 relay team of Christopher Hall, Myles Andrews, Aaron Harris, and Christian Penn set the national high school record in the 4x800 in 7:28.75. The record still stands.
"We're known by many as that sprint school," Anderson says. "To hold a national record in a middle-distance relay event is very gratifying."
Long Beach has much to be proud of, indeed. Showing their talent in invitationals, CIF and national meets is nothing new. Although there will certainly be loyalty to their teams' success first at CIF meets, one underlying thing is that head-to-head Moore League battles strengthen individuals and relay teams. There is a bond among the league's schools that reflects both pride and respect for what the Long Beach-laden league produces.
"There's a sweatshirt I saw at the end of the Moore League finals that said 'Long Beach versus Everybody," quipped one league assistant coach who wished to remain anonymous. "Now in CIF it is all about seeing the Long Beach kids do well. We push each other at the league finals to move on and to qualify. This league helps all of us sharpen our skills. We want to win, we don't want to lose to them, but we do respect them.
"When teams from other leagues look at the Moore League, they notice that we have a lot of talent within about a 10-mile radius of each other. I recall one coach, who coached multiple sports at another Moore League school who brought up the fact that every track and field team in the Moore League has won a CIF (team) title. Not many leagues can say that."
The quest for more titles for Moore League relays and teams in 2023 is underway.
Ryan Blystone is a freelance writer and an associate editor for MileSplitCA.
Photos by Josh Barber and Raymond Tran