Six Warrior girls performances in top six at Falcon Relays

Six Fallbrook High School girls or girls relay teams placed among the top six at the Falcon Relays track and field meet March 16 at Torrey Pines High School.

“It was a pretty big invitational,” said Fallbrook girls head coach Troy Hamlin. “Falcon is a very good meet. It gives the kids a lot of opportunity to participate in an invitational.”

The Falcon Relays meet is also one of the few invitationals with junior varsity races, and Hamlin noted that the JV events allow younger runners to obtain experience in an invitational meet.

Fallbrook’s highest finisher was senior Daijon Sumpter, who competed in the #2 heat of the 100-meter dash and had a third-place time of 13.40 seconds. Fallbrook sophomore Peyton Brittain had a lane in the invitational 100-meter dash, where her time of 13.06 seconds placed fifth.

The Fallbrook girl with the highest finish in an invitational race was junior Sarah Grantham, whose time of 50.26 seconds placed fourth in the 300-meter hurdles. “Pretty solid performance,” Hamlin said.

Grantham also competed in the 100-meter hurdles race but used that opportunity to transition from a four-step style to a three-step style and placed more emphasis on competing in a three-step mode than on a position.

Grantham, Brittain, freshman Madeline Gilchrist, and Sumpter were on Fallbrook’s 4x100 relay team which placed fourth in the Division I race with a time of 52.04 seconds. Fallbrook’s 4x200 relay team of Gilchrist, Jordan Danso, Sumpter, and Brittain had a fourth-place time of 1:52.60.

In the distance medley relay Fallbrook’s time of 13:31.88 placed seventh. Haley McCaffrey took 4:15 for the 1,200-meter portion; Grantham’s 400 meters consumed 1:04; Rosanne Lopez held the baton for 2:33 as she ran 800 meters; and freshman Hannah Niebel closed out the race by completing the 1,600-meter segment in 5:37.

(The meet utilized electronic timing; the individual performances utilized hand-held times.)

Niebel also ran in the invitational 1,500-meter race and finished 12th with a time of 5:19.39, which would equate to approximately 5:35 over 1,600 meters. “It was just a very solid performance,” Hamlin said.

“This was the first time she had ever raced against that level of competition,” Hamlin said. “She was the only freshman out there against a very high-caliber field, and I was very proud of her.”

Lopez ran in the invitational 800-meter event and placed 12th with a time of 2:34.69.

Senior Heather Williams threw the discus 86 feet 2 inches to place sixth while taking 14th in the shot put with a distance of 26 feet 0 1/2 inches. The unrelated Amanda Williams was seventh in the shot put at 30’7” and eighth in the discus at 78’3”.

Shavonne Donoghue cleared 9’0” in the pole vault for seventh place as well as a personal record while Mikala Tidd finished eighth in that event with a distance of 8’6”.