CHS sweeps Wildcat Relays

CLOVIS - Most girls high school pole vaulters would be delighted with a vault of 10 feet, 3 inches.

Clovis High senior Camryn Barros was OK with it in Friday's Wildcat Relays at Leon Williams Stadium - but then, she's done better.

Barros helped the Lady Wildcats avenge an earlier loss at Artesia, winning pole vault as well as the 100, as Clovis finished with 104 team points to 95 for the Lady Bulldogs in the lightning-delayed meet.

"It's not my best," said the 5-foot-2 Barros, who cleared 12-5 the previous week in a meet at Hobbs. "But I'm striving for consistency in my technique."

The Lady Cats were bent on squaring things with Artesia after finishing second at a meet hosted by the Lady Bulldogs earlier this season. They did that with the help of wins in long jump and the 200 from senior Kiara Cox, a first in discus and a second in javelin from senior Skyler Jordan and victories in three of the five relays.

"They beat us in our first meet of the season," Barros said. "They're the only team that's beaten us this year."

CHS girls coach Darrel Ray was encouraged overall by his team's performances.

"Last week we had some pretty good performances, but our relays didn't get much better," he said. "All of our relays got better tonight, and we're really happy with that. The performances were pretty good all the way around."

Clovis Christian's girls, who tallied 29 points and outlasted Lovington for third place, captured three event wins - senior Lola DeGroot at 5 feet in high jump, her sister Sofia at 32-5 1/2 in triple jump and Katelyn Joslin in a time of 14 minutes, 40.52 seconds in the 3,200.

Clovis also took the boys team title with 96 points to 86 1/2 for Lovington. Carlsbad did not make the trip as planned due to a COVID-19 quarantine, while CCS squads opened their campaign against much larger competition by finishing third in the girls division and fourth on the boys side.

For the CHS boys, senior Jerrick Maldonado won the 800 in 2:04.01, several seconds off his state-best time this season, and also took the 3,200 in 9:55.50. But his bid to sweep the distance events was sidetracked due to an Achilles problem, and he was held out as a precaution.

"I had planned to run all three, but I was hurting really bad," he said. "I usually run two (of the three) events, but this was the first time I wanted to run all three. Coach (Mark Sena) wanted to see if I was strong enough to do that."

He said he reached his goal for the meet in the 3,200.

"I finally broke 10 minutes; that was my goal," he said. "I've been hitting around 10:19 or 10:20, so I was really excited about that."

Sophomore Robert Nora also picked up a pair of wins for the Wildcats, taking long jump (19-10) and triple jump (41-5) while finishing second in the 100 (12.8). Senior Pacer Hill won in pole vault at 13-3, although it was off his season best, while CHS won the 400 and 1,600 relays.

Gusty late-evening winds did play a factor in some performances.

"Every week we're trying to improve and get better, and we did that today," Cats coach Mark Sena said. "We had a lot of kids who had personal bests."

Newcomers out from the basketball team helped as well.

"When you get a few more kids out who are competitive, it helps our depth and allows us to do a few more things," Sena said.

CCS, meantime, picked up its only boys win in high jump where senior Dawson Teune cleared 5-11. Senior Kane Duong added a second in discus (125-5) and a third in shot put (39-11) for the Eagles.

Clovis Christian was slated to compete on Saturday in the Quay County Invite in Tucumcari. Meantime, the next outing for the Cats and Lady Cats is on Friday when they return to Artesia.