This is an interesting time in the high school track and field season.
The Arcadia Invitational is roughly three weeks away. It is California high school track’s biggest event outside of the CIF meets that are coming up fast.
The CIF Southern Section preliminaries are seven weeks away. That’s usually when multi-event athletes think about reducing their choices to one or two events.
Corona del Mar senior Ava Simos, the Orange County leader in the 100 meters this season and a CIF State qualifier in the 100 and 200 last year, is entered in four events in the the Laguna Beach Trophy Invitational track and field meet that has field events Friday and running events Saturday at Laguna Beach High.
Simos said she will compete in the 100, 200, 100 hurdles and the 4×100 relay in what is one of the better early-season meets in Orange County every season.
Will she forego one of those events soon?
“For me that’s difficult,” Simos said, “because I like all of my events.”
Corona del Mar track coach Bill Sumner has coached many NCAA and Olympics track and field stars in his more than 40 years in the sport as the CdM track coach and as the school’s cross country coach, and as a coach at Cal Coast Track Club. If someone creates an Orange County High School Coaches Hall of Fame, Sumner should be in the inaugural group of inductees.
He would like to see Simos start focusing on two events, or even just one, and soon.
“Is it going to be the 100? Or the 200?” Sumner said. “If she picks one event and focuses on one event she can win state.”
Simos established the county’s best wind-legal time in the 100 last week when she went 12.17 seconds in the Sunset Conference Invitational at Los Alamitos. Simos was second in the 200 at 25.34.
She labeled that 12.17 in the 100 “a soft time,” meaning she knows she can do much better. Her personal wind-legal record is the 11.98 she ran in winning in the CIF-SS finals last year.
Simos’ 15.86 in the 100 hurdles is the county’s second-best time under all conditions this season.
She was first in the 100 and 200 at the Orange County Championships last year and was second in the 100 hurdles at that meet. Simos, who played on Corona del Mar’s flag football team this past fall, was the Sunset Conference champion in those three events last year.
The Cal Poly San Luis Obispo commit is from Australia where she first became interested in track and field. She did multiple events there, including the long jump.
She found that she enjoyed that and still does.
“Before I go off to college I want to do as much as I can,” Simos said, and that includes Saturday at Laguna Beach.
She’s going to listen to her heart. It’s going to tell her what to do.
Sumner also wants to be heard.
NOTES
• The first varsity running event Saturday in the Laguna Beach Trophy Invitational is the girls 4×100 relay at around 8 a.m. The field events start Friday at 2 p.m. with the high jump. Mater Dei junior Brandon Gorski, the county leader at in the high jump with a mark of 6-6, is entered. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for others and parking is free but difficult. …
• Another track and field meet this weekend is the Triton Invitational at San Clemente. It has a strong field, including Northwood senior Dheer Patel who is the county leader in the 400 at 48.25 and is among the county’s top five in the 100 and 200. …
• Brandon Benjamin is back at Canyon, where he was the 2022-23 Orange County boys basketball player of the year as a sophomore, after playing this junior season at Mater Dei. He will have to make a change of residence to be eligible as a senior for the 2024-25 season. Shortly after Mater Dei was eliminated in the CIF State tournament Benjamin withdrew from Mater Dei and began classes at Canyon this week. Benjamin, because he did not make the residence change before playing at Mater Dei, had to sit out roughly the first month of this season but does not have a second sit-out opportunity for his senior year at Canyon. … …
• When he was at Canyon, Benjamin was the focal point of just about every Canyon offensive play and for good reason. His ability to get the ball into the basket from any angle within five feet of the hoop is incredible. At Mater Dei, with so many inside and outside points-producers, Benjamin was not often the first or second or even third option. …
• In other Mater Dei transfer news, football offensive tackle Kodi Greene (6-6, 290) who was at Eastside Catholic in Sammamish, Wash., this past season, started classes at Mater Dei this week. Greene, who will be a junior this fall, has offers from more than a dozen colleges including Michigan, Stanford, USC and Washington. So Greene did not need to transfer to get more college exposure. …
• Newport Harbor finished second in the Best of the West boys volleyball tournament’s Gold Division last week at Poway High in San Diego County. Newport Harbor lost to Mira Costa in the final. …
• High school baseball are playing a handful games again at Angel Stadium this spring. Saturday’s games are Santa Ana vs. Long Beach Poly at noon, Beckman vs. Irvine at 3:30 p.m.
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