DAVIS, Calif – St. Francis qualified four student-athletes to the CIF State Championships while tying for second place in the final team scoring to wrap up the second day of action at the Sac-Joaquin Section Masters track & field championships Saturday at Davis Senior High's Ron & Mary Brown Stadium.
Individually, senior Tatiana Cornejo won the girls' 1,600-meter run then added a fourth-place finish in the 800 for 15 team points. Senior Kenna DeLemos placed second in the long jump for another eight points. Senior Cate Joaquin also hit a runner-up finish in the 3,200 for another eight points, while junior Maddie Pelfrey opened the day with a third-place showing in the pole vault – good for six team ticks.
The top three finishers in each event earn berths in the CIF State Championships, held on May 27 and 28 at Buchanan High School in Clovis. The fourth-place finisher is the designated alternate from the SJS.
Cornejo crossed the finish line in the 1,600 with a winning time of five minutes, 2.97 seconds, beating Granite Bay's Carly Foster (5:06.39) by more than three full seconds. She then ran a 2:17.42 in the 800 to place fourth, a half second ahead of Oak Ridge's Quinn Walker (2:17.92) but more than a second behind third-place Summer Doyle of Rio Americano (2:16.06) for a state meet berth.
DeLemos enjoyed arguably the most "Cinderella" finish by a Troubadour in Saturday's competition. She entered the meet as the 14th-ranked long jumper, and had placed fifth at the SJS Division I meet a week earlier. She fouled her first attempt, then popped a personal-best 17 feet, 9.5 inches in her second attempt. DeLemos then went 17-6.5 on her third jump to match her previous PR.
With the field pared down to eight finalists, DeLemos fouled her fourth overall jump, then went 17-7.5 on her fifth. In her final attempt and in the penultimate jump of the competition, the Woodland product and future Delta College athlete landed a whopping 18-7.5. This mark not only moved her up to third on the school's all-time list and made her just the third SFHS athlete in school history to surpass the 18-foot threshold, but it gave her the lead in the competition.
That lead was short-lived, as St. Mary's Cameron Fields went 18-8.5 on the final leap of the meet to claim the Masters title. Nonetheless, DeLemos finished second overall and earned a trip to the state meet with that effort. In the Troubie record book, only Tifani Grimes (19-0 in 2004) and Reyna Johnson (18-8 in 2019) have gone further.
Joaquin's second-place performance came in SFHS' final event. She and Del Oro's Riley Chamberlain traded laps drafting each other, holding the top two positions from the starting gun. In the end, the future BYU runner out-kicked the future Georgetown runner on the bell lap, but Joaquin's 10:28.69 marked her No. 2 effort in her prep career behind only the school-record 10:20.97 she ran at the Arcadia Invitational in early April.
Pelfrey began the today for the Troubies with a third-place 11-6 in the pole vault. She cleared her opening height of 10-9 on her second attempt, then sailed over 11-3 on her first effort. At 11-6, Pelfrey beat 11-6 on her second attempt, reducing the field to the three state meet qualifiers: herself, Del Oro's Avery Macktinger and Oak Ridge's Alison Sahaida. With the Clovis already ticket secured, Pelfrey passed at 11-9 and 12-0, then tried for 12-3 with the possibility of matching her school record of 12-6. Unfortunately, Pelfrey missed on all three attempts, but her Saturday podium finish and state championship qualification was already secured.
Also representing St. Francis in Saturday's session was sophomore Kayla Towne, who ran a 2:19.22 to finish almost even up with Ripon's Annie Wild. The photo placed Towne in ninth at 2:19.219 (Wild went 2:19.215), but that marked the fourth straight meet that she had broken the 2:20 barrier.
Those 37 total points matched that of Edison High for a share of second place. St. Mary's ran away with the girls' team title with 64 points, while Whitney (32) and Bella Vista (31) finished in fourth and fifth places, respectively.
The SJS Masters meet combines the top athletes from each of the section division championship meets, contested one week earlier.
The CIF State Track & Field Championships run May 27 and 28 at Buchanan High. DeLemos will compete first on that Friday in the long jump (1:45 p.m.), with Pelfrey following in the pole vault (4:30 p.m.). Cornejo's 1,600 prelims begin at 5:30 p.m. that night. Joaquin's 3,200 race goes off at 9:10 on Saturday night.
2022 SAC-JOAQUIN SECTION MASTERS, DAY 2
Ron & Mary Brown Stadium (Davis, Calif.)
Results with SFHS entrants only • Leaders/winners plus SFHS finishers listed
GIRLS' POLE VAULT FINAL - 1. Alison Sahaida, Oak Ridge, 13-2… 3. Maddie Pelfrey, 11-6.
GIRLS' LONG JUMP FINAL - 1. Cameron Fields, St. Mary's, 18-8.5 (w: +0.9 m/s)… 2. Kenna DeLemos, 18-7.5 (w: +0.8 m/s)
GIRLS' 1600 METERS - 1. Tatiana Cornejo, St. Francis, 5:02.97.
GIRLS' 800 METERS - 1. Haleigh Humble, Oakdale, 2:13.79… 4. Tatiana Cornejo, 2:17.42; 9. Kayla Towne, 2:19.219.
GIRLS' 3200 METERS - 1. Riley Chamberlain, Del Oro, 10:20.51… 2. Cate Joaquin, 10:28.69.
GIRLS' TEAM SCORING (top 10) - 1. St. Mary's, 64… 2(tie). Edison, St. Francis, 37; 4. Whitney, 32; 5. Bella Vista, 31; 6. Turlock, 28.5; 7. Oak Ridge, 25; 8. Del Oro, 23; 9. Rocklin, 22; 10. Lincoln, 21.
