With a final score of 31 points, the Santa Clara Bruins girls track team finished in third place out of all of the schools in the Central Coast Section. Unlike other sports like baseball and basketball where teams are separated into CCS divisions, track CCS is all jumbled up into one competition. The Bruins, therefore, finished third out of the 152 schools within CCS.
“They did a great job this season. Any time we had something set us back, somebody always found a way to get us back on track,” said Bruins Head Coach Julie L’Heureux. “We had one girl who was down to her last jump and we thought she wasn’t going to make the finals, but then she set a school-record breaking jump and got into the finals and got more points for us. It’s been that way all season, someone will always step up for the team. To finish third out of all the teams in CCS is quite an accomplishment.”
The third place finish is the best the Bruins girls team has ever done in school history. Leading the way were freshman high jumper Maia Garcia, senior shot putter Grace Willis and junior discus thrower Amaya Fuller. Garcia finished second in the high jump with a PR mark of five feet, six inches. Willis finished third in shot put with a distance of 40 feet, one inch, and Fuller finished fourth with a discus throw of 124 feet even.
Other notable contributors for the Bruins were seniors Olivia Valente, Jazzlyn Matthews and Minhaal Naeem. Valente finished fourth in the 100 meters with a time of 12.30 seconds. Matthews finished sixth and set a new school record in the triple jump with a jump of 37 feet and 6.75 inches. Naeem also finished sixth in discus with a throw of 119 feet and nine inches.
Coach L’Heureux was also named the CCS Track and Field Honor Coach for this season. It was certainly a year to remember for all the girls’ track team, and it’s not over quite yet.
While the season has come to a close for the majority of the members on the squad, Garcia, Willis and Fuller have each qualified to represent Santa Clara at the CIF State Track Meet which will be held at Buchanan high school in Clovis on June 1 and 2.
