By Leonard COUTIN

CV High School track and field Head Coach Mark Evans has been honing his program this year, assembling some of the finest coaches available to assist the Falcon athletes in preparing for the upcoming season. Building a staff of 10 additional coaches promises to provide the Falcons with the necessary skills to become successful in their events. Returning veteran coaches are Dennis Oliver, who specializes in the long jump and triple jump, Jason Perez (high jump), Eric Kwong (hurdles), Brett Harvey (sprints), Alex Lowe (distances), Rob Evans (pole vault and distances) and James Kershavarz (pole vault). Newcomers to CV include Ara Keshishian (shot put and discus), Tyrone Allen (shot put and discus) and Leland Waters (sprints).

The backbone of every track team is having a strong distance crew. These individuals will run the 400m, 800m, 1600m and 3200m races along with the final event of the day, the 4x400m relay. The distance crews continually work on maintaining endurance and strength in the off-season by adding speed workouts to provide the necessary ingredients to boost their performances.

This year the Falcons boys and girls cross-country teams showed great promise and will be an asset in scoring the necessary points on the track. The Falcon boys will rely heavily on lead distance runner Colin FitzGerald, who can win most distances, adding valuable points to the Falcon score. Manan Vats, teammates Zachery Johnson and Artin Allahverdian will also be good contributors to the distance races. Kevin Tasci and Brandon Budwig are expected to do well in the sprints. Aidan Foote and Riley Holmquist will take the lead in the pole vault events.

This year the Falcon girls’ team will have one of the best sprint teams in the league. Both Jessy Shelton and Claire Schlueter proved last year they were the gold winners in the 100m and 200m races. Adding to the sprint team is Briana Domingo, Jestena Galvan, and Kelly Im. Jennifer Saengsri, Kristina Carrillo, along with teammates Galvan and Shelton, should do well in the hurdle races.  The Falcons will look to Schlueter to provide significant gold wins in all the jumping events. League winner high jumper Claire Codding should have a promising year in both the high jump and the jumping events. Emily Perkins will be a solid contender in the pole vault events. The Falcon distance races will be led by Naila Ortiz and Kelly Owens.

The first unofficial event of the season will be the Burbank Relays held at Burroughs High School on Feb. 25 starting at 9 a.m. The next unofficial track meet will be on March 2, when the Falcons will compete against Golden Valley at Golden Valley High School in Santa Clarita starting at 3:15 p.m.

  Leonard Coutin