The boys and girls 800-meter relay teams from Santa Barbara High won the Invitational sections at the distance carnival of the Simi Valley Invitational, and Anne Knecht won the girls Invitational 800 race in a personal best.
The girls team of Mackenna Show, Maia Show, Ridley DeSoto and Ailey Alexander won the relay in 10:30.58. The boys quartet of Blaise Snow, Oliver Levine, Bode Andrulaitis and Andreas Dybdahl ran a meet record and season best of 8:11.15.
“Both teams were in tight back-and-forth battles with Granada Hills that came down to decisive anchor legs,” said coach Olivia Perdices. “Just great racing from all eight kids.”
Anne Knecht won the 800 in 2:17.58.
“She just sat comfortably with the leaders till 150 to go and ran away from them,” said Perdices.
The Simi Valley Invitational runs Invitational, Seeded and Rated sections.
In other results, Davis Flanagin won the Invitational long jump in a personal best 22-7.5 and was second in the Invitational triple jump at 44-7.5. He also ran on the fourth-place Invitational 4×400 meter relay with Monty Lopez, Carter Battle and Roman Higgins (3:39.19) and was fourth in the Seeded 100 meters at 11.13.
“Davis keeps coming up with clutch performances,” said Perdices.
Oliver Levine ran a season best 9:55.54 for third in the Invitational 3200 meters.
“That was a gutsy race on tired legs after running a PR split on the 4×8,” said Perdices.
Sierra Gronquist vaulted a personal best 9-9 for second in the Seeded pole vault and Jack Garza was third in the seeded 1600 at a personal best 4:42.87.
Gianna Stump was third in the Invitational triple jump at 34-5.5
“She jumped that exact number three times today. I’ve never seen that before,” said Perdices.
“Those are two of our captains for a reason. They’re kids who understand the process and keep performing better and better.”
Sasha Tanasychuk was second in the Rated 1600 at a personal best 4:50.27 and Ben Diaz took second in the Rated 3200 at 10:29.98 in his first race at that distance.
“Those are two hardworking young men who are put together some nice races,” said the coach.
“This is always a good meet for us. The good weather and great competition brought out a lot in our athletes this weekend. We took some big steps in building to the second half of our season.”
The Dons have a bit of a break from competing before hosting the Santa Barbara City Championships on April 5.