A proud collection of Los Gatos boys stood up high on the awards stage late Saturday night at Cerritos College in Norwalk. Strong performances by Nico Weiler, Colin Quirke and Kevin Rutledge led the Wildcats to a second-place team finish in the state.
"We're very happy about finishing second as a team," said pole vaulter Nico Weiler, who captured his second straight state title with a 17-3 leap. "It's a great group of guys. We all hang out together at the track every day."
Dominguez finished first in the boys' team standings with 36 points and Los Gatos and Long Beach Poly totaled 32. Quirke added a second place in the shot put and a third in the discus and Rutledge flew 23-9.5 to take second in the long jump.
"I'm really glad about setting a state meet record," said Weiler, who broke his own mark of 17-2 from a year ago. "I did really well in warm-ups and it went really well until 17-6. I switched to a longer pole for the last three jumps, but unfortunately I didn't make it."
The top local girls performance came in the pole vault from Homestead's Sarah Engle, who set a PR with a 12-6 leap for third place. Engle cleared 12-0 on her first try as she and three others distanced themselves from the competition. She then topped her previous best of 12-3 on her third attempt at 12-6.
Lynbrook's Eric Surprenant, of Saratoga, missed qualifying in the 110-meter high hurdles by the barest of margins. He and Nevada Union's Chase Dixon each clocked 14.45 and meet officials took the marks out to the next decimal point. Dixon's time was 14.441 whereas Surprenant was back at 14.446. The Viking senior did reach the finals of the 300 intermediate hurdles as he ran a fine 37.63 on Friday. However, on Saturday he clipped a couple hurdles and finished ninth in 39.28.