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Palo Alto’s Ariel Le seems to be flying over the hurdles. Courtesy Malcolm Slaney.

While the Palo Alto track and field team was competing in their final regular season meet at Los Altos on Friday, the SCVAL Board of Managers were deciding whether the season would continue or not.

Student-athletes had no idea if they were coming to school Monday to turn in uniforms or prepare for another meet.

Los Altos won both the boys (98-29) and girls (64-51) competitions, but, really, everybody won.

The 14-team Santa Clara Valley Athletic League will hold its league finals, a necessary step to qualify for the Central Coast Section meet, on May 29, tentatively set for Santa Clara High.

For the boys, Aleksei Seletskiy, John Bard, Vianga Mahe and Aaron Kim each won events, while David Evans, Brody Simison, Pashalis Pashalious, Kenji Tella, Jeremy Huang and Rishi Tella each placed among the top three.

Seletskiy went 4:15.74 to win the 1,600 meters, Bard won the 800 in 2:00.07, Mahe threw the shot put 34-8 to place first and Kim went 6-7 to claim the high jump.

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    Palo Alto athletes resting during their dual meet at Los Altos. Courtesy Malcolm Slaney.
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    Elizabeth Fetter (right) and Hillary Studdert finished 1-2 in the 1,600. Courtesy Abbey Liao.
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    Getting ready to start the 4×100 relay. Courtesy Abbey Liao.
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    The 100 meters. Courtesy Malcolm Slaney.
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    The 1,600 meters. Courtesy Malcolm Slaney.
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    The high jump. Courtesy Malcolm Slaney.
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    Relay. Courtesy Malcolm Slaney.
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    High jump. Courtesy Malcolm Slaney.

For the girls, Elizabeth Fetter won the 1,600 in 5:05.01, just ahead of Hilary Studdert’s 5:05.12, and then raced 10:52.40 to win the 3,200. Emilie Difede was third.

Katherine Cheng went 2:18.36 to win the 800. Studdert finished second. Natallia Cossio went 5-0 to win the high jump and the Paly 4×400 relay team finished the meet with a victory.

Ariel Le won the 100 hurdles in 17.21 and placed second in the 100, just ahead of teammate Meya Gao. Heidi Mathews placed second on two events and Madeline Lohse placed second in another.

By Rick Eymer

By Rick Eymer

By Rick Eymer

By Rick Eymer

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1 Comment

  1. I pity the poor sports hater. Several years ago, they were so excited about the prospects of banning tackle football. Why they even had a Will Smith motion picture for support! But then, years go by, and football is as popular as ever: the most popular American sport, more so, even. Then, Covid hits. Here was your 2nd chance! you thought. Use this as an excuse to ban sports, because you don’t like them yourself. Pretend that playing sports was as dangerous for young well-conditioned athletes as it was for obese diabetics in old folks homes. So you advocated no pro sports seasons. But then there were pro sports seasons. Then, no college sports at least. But there were college sports seasons. Well, surely you can assert your moral superiority to ban local youth sports, such as in high school. Nope, they had seasons too. Well, how about 11 sports at Stanford? Nope. They’re on. Well, you MUST stop the high school sports playoffs–or ELSE! sorry. they’re on too.

    Like the white supremacist after the Chauvin verdict, huh sports-haters? What a set-back for your movement!

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