Murray wins 400 meter at Jaguar Invitational

Fallbrook High School sophomore Erin Murray won the girls 400-meter race at the morning session of the Jaguar Invitational track and field meet, April 14, at Valley Center High School.

Murray had a time of 58.72 seconds. Poway High School junior Maggie Lusk had the second-place time of 59.41, and El Camino High School junior Lilliana McGraw completed her lap in 1:00.79 for third place. Hand-held times are displayed in increments of one-tenth of a second; electronic times are in one-hundredth of a second increments.

“She’s got talent, but more than just talent. She likes to come in and work hard,” Fallbrook head coach Marco Arias said of Murray. “She listens to the coach.”

Murray became Fallbrook’s premier 400-meter runner last year as a freshman. April Paulson won the 2016 league championship in that event as a junior, but shin splints restricted Paulson’s 2017 season and Murray proved herself a worthy replacement and gave Fallbrook the 2017 league championship in the 400-meter run.

“It’s quite incredible everything she’s done,” Arias said. “She always rises to the race. I look forward to watching her at Escondido.”

The Escondido Invitational meet will be contested April 27.

“I think she’s going to have a very good showing as we progress through the season,” Arias said.

The school record for the 400-meter race is 57.65; Nicole Rothert has held that superlative since 2003.

“It’s going to be fun to see if she can make a run at the school record and establish herself as one of the premier runners,” Arias said of Murray. “It’s going to be exciting to see how she develops the next couple of years.”

The Warriors’ first Valley League meet of 2018 was held April 5 at San Pasqual High School. Fallbrook junior Darriale Yarbrough, who did not compete in the Jaguar Invitational due to an injury, gave the Warriors first-place points in three events with 12.3 in the 100-meter dash, 26.3 in the 200-meter dash and 18 feet, 1 1/2 inches in long jump. Murray won the 400-meter race in 1:00.4 and added a third-place point in the 300-meter hurdles.

“These two girls give us quite a lot of points,” Arias said. “With any depth behind them we’d be pretty deadly.”

The only other Fallbrook girl to obtain first-place points, April 5, was freshman Charlene Cayas, who threw 26-7 in shot put.

“We just don’t have the depth,” Arias said. “There are some events we don’t fill at all.”

A team is allowed up to four competitors in each individual event, which provides the school with five points for the first-place mark, three points for second place and one point for third place. The two relay races provide five points to the winner and no points to the other team.

The Warriors earned second-place points from junior Audrey Petersen in both the 800-meter and 1,600-meter races. Gisselle Rivera, the only senior who earned points for the Fallbrook girls, was second in the 3,200-meter race.

The three Fallbrook boys first-place results at San Pasqual were all in field events; junior Darius Watson threw 46-8 in shot put and 119-3 1/2 in discus, while senior Ben Zepeda cleared 10-6 in pole vault.

“It’s still a relatively young team,” Arias said.

San Pasqual’s boys won by a 94-40 margin while the Golden Eagles prevailed by a 92-40 score in the girls’ competition.

“They just keep competing. They just keep going,” Arias said of the Warriors. “No matter what the score is, they just compete.”