Records Fall at Russell Cup for MHS Track & Field

The Malibu Sharks Track & Field team brought their “A” game to Carpinteria for the Russell Cup, one of the premier and longest running small school track meets in the state.

Caroline Pietrzyk continued her stellar sophomore season taking the championship for Malibu in the 1600m against a crowded field of 35 competitors.

Pietrzyk ran alongside defending champion and pacesetter Madison Grenier, Paraclete High School (Lancaster) for the first half of the race before pulling away from the pack with a lap and a half remaining and finished strong with a personal record of 5:07.

Junior Linus Gordon set a personal record in the pole vault leaping 10-09 in the Boys Final in spite of some very unique circumstances.

When the pole vault competition began, Linus was still competing in the high jump competition 50-yards away. As a result of the meet timing for the simultaneous events, he had to pass on the first few rounds of vaults. 

By the time that his high jump competition ended, the bar in the vault was set at 10 feet, 9 inches, three inches higher than his personal best. But that didn’t seem to faze the poised athlete, as he sprinted to the vault pit just in time to change shoes and hit the runway on his way to the best vault of his young career!

In the triple jump competition, Dyer Pettijohn smashed his PR by 10 inches with a jump of 41-06, taking fifth place among the 41 schools competing at this Year’s Russell Cup.

The other Varsity events which saw new personal records for the Sharks were the 200m, where Andrew Yazdani ran in 24.18, and the 800m where Caroline Pietrzyk shaved 3 seconds with a PR of 2:24.

Shattered PR’s were also common place in the Frosh/Soph events for many of the Sharks. For the Boys it was Justin Baldinger in the 200m (25.21), Nick Paige in the 400m (56.91), Alec Wilimovsky in the 1600m (5:03) and the 3200m (10.54), Matthew Vincent in the 300HHurdles (48.72) and the Long Jump (17-01½), and Devin Sarantinos in the PV (8-03).

The girls were led by Sophomore Mia Green who took the podium with a 4 th place finish in the 300-Hurdles with a PR of 52.99. Michaela Cosentino set new PR’s in the 100-Hurdles (18.99) and the High Jump (4-03), Jena Weinberger in the 400m (1:11.28), Madeleine Ward in the 300Hurdles (53.08), and Caitlyn Myers in the 3200m (12:53).

The 4 x 100 Relay Team of Green, Cosentino, Weinberger, and Kennedy Myers took 5th in the meet with a PR of 55:65.
Come see the Sharks in the only home meet of the year on Thursday at 3 p.m., as they take on the teams from Santa Clara and Villanova Prep.