SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Senior Maddie Pelfrey, junior Grace Dunham and a 4x800 relay team will represent St. Francis at the 103rd CIF State Track & Field Championships, hosted at Buchanan High School in Clovis on Friday and Saturday.

Pelfrey reached the state meet in the pole vault for the second straight season. Dunham qualified in the 1,600 meters, plus she will join Troubadour teammates Daphne Witherell, Kayla Towne and Kelsey Sutch in the inaugural 4x800 relay at the state championships.

The meet begins with the first field events at 1:45 p.m. on Friday, while the first running event starts at 5 p.m. Pelfrey opens SF action in the pole vault prelims at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, with the top 12 advancing to Saturday's 6:15 p.m. final. Dunham's appearance in the 1,600 is slated for 5:30 p.m. on Friday, with the top four in each of the two prelim heats plus the next four fastest moving on to the 6 p.m. final on Saturday. The 4x800 relay consists of one final at 8:50 p.m. on Saturday night.

The UC Santa Barbara-bound Pelfrey set the school record of 12 feet, 6 inches at the Delta League championship meet as a junior, breaking Meghan Ladd's 2018 benchmark in the process. By rule, Friday's starting height will be set at 11-9, which she has surpassed four times this year, most notably with the 12-2 at the Sac-Joaquin Section Div. I meet and the 12-0 at last weekend's CIF-SJS Masters championships. Pelfrey won the divisional meet, becoming the first St. Francis athlete to capture a section pole vault title in 20 years. 

Dunham's appearance at the state meet continues an outstanding finish to her junior season. She enjoyed a huge PR of five minutes, 4.47 seconds at the Sacramento Meet of Champions – cutting more than six seconds from her previous best – then followed with an individual Delta League championship (5:07.47), a runner-up finish at the SJS D-I meet (5:03.87) and the third-place 5:02.27 at last week's section Masters. That most recent time moved Dunham ahead of Towne for eighth on the school's all-time leaderboard, and missed No. 7 Miranda Myers (2013) by just .03.

The 4x800 relay, added to the league, section and state meets this year, has been a popular event at the major high school invitationals. The Dunham, Sutch, Witherell and Towne foursome won the inaugural Delta League championship with a 9:44.19 mark, then set a school record of 9:26.91 in placing second to Whitney at the SJS divisional. Eight days later, that crew tied its own mark at the section Masters' meet, grabbing the second of two berths to the state meet. 

Towne has the fastest individual 800 of any Troubie in 2023, thanks to the 2:15.33 she ran at the Sacramento Meet of Champions. She went on to runner-up at the SJS D-I championships (2:16.50), which earned her a return trip to the section Masters, where she placed seventh (2:20.54) overall. Dunham's best 800 of 2:20.20 came in the Delta League championship prelims, which was in turn a .11 improvement on her winning time at the second league center meet.

Sutch hit a PR of 2:23.29 at the Delta League finals for her fastest time in more than two years. The seventh-place finish also nabbed her a second consecutive appearance at the SJS D-I championships, where she took 17th (2:27.39). Witherell, the lone senior among the bunch, is better known for her accomplishments in the 3,200, in which she qualified for the section divisional in each of her final two years as a Troubie. Her lone 800 appearance in 2023 was a PR of 2:27.82 at the first Delta League center meet.

Finally, junior Pamela Vargas will make the trip as an alternate on the 4x800. Her personal best of 2:30.68 came at Davis' Halden Invitational on April 15. Dunham, Sutch, Witherell and Towne were also part of St. Francis' squad at the CIF state cross country meet last fall, along with Emma Dobson, Ryann Strawn and Paige Quigley.

Tickets are available only through the GoFan website and app. Record Timing will provide live results, while the NFHS Network offers video of each day's action at www.nfhsnetwork.com/associations/cif.

A brief summary of each St. Francis entrant is listed below:

103RD CIF STATE TRACK & FIELD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Buchanan High School • Veterans Memorial Stadium • May 27-28
St. Francis entry information

EVENT 24: GIRLS' POLE VAULT - Flight 1, Position 14 (Friday 4:30 p.m.)
SF Entrant: Maddie Pelfrey
Personal Record: 12-6 (2022 Delta League Championships)
Season Record: 12-2 (2023 CIF-SJS Div. I Championships)
Athletic.net Profile: https://www.athletic.net/athlete/16418809/track-and-field/

EVENT 3: GIRLS' 1,600 METERS - Heat 1, Lane 10 (Friday 5:30 p.m.)
SF Entrant: Grace Dunham
Personal & Season Record: 5:02.27 (2023 CIF-SJS Masters Championships)
Athletic.net Profile: https://www.athletic.net/athlete/17575843/track-and-field/

EVENT 17: 4x800 RELAY - Section 1, Position 12 (Saturday 8:50 p.m.)
SF Entrants: Grace Dunham, Kelsey Sutch, Kayla Towne, Daphne Witherell, Pamela Vargas (alternate)
Season Record: 9:26.91 (Twice, 2023 CIF-SJS Div. I Championships & 2023 CIF-SJS Masters Championships)