On your mark... The 2018 Culver City Invitational Relays can only mean one thing: high school track and field is in season. The meet continues to gain in popularity as 25 Southern California schools representing 12 leagues participated at Culver City High on Saturday, March 3.

Girls and boys varsity and frosh/soph teams competed for medals in 48 total events under partly cloudy, slightly windy but ideal temperature conditions. For the Culver High squads under Head Coach Jahmal Wright and Girls Head Coach Rayfield Beaton it was an opportunity to see how they matchup in the early season against the competition.

"The meet went very well. We got positive feedback on how well run and efficient the meet was. It was well-attended and the competition was great. Overall it was a very good meet," said Coach Wright.

"It's the second week in track season. The goal was to see how the athletes matched up with other schools this time of the year. That's the purpose of the meet. My frosh/soph girls did very well in the hurdles and the relays. They did great."

There were a number of impressive results especially from the Culver girls in hurdle events. Senior Jasmine Marrero won both varsity events, taking the 100m hurdles in 15.93 and the 300m in 48.12. Guess Scott, senior, finished second in the 100m hurdles with Amber Green, senior, finishing fifth. Scott and Green finished fifth and sixth respectively in the 300m event.

The Culver frosh/soph girls finished one-two in both hurdle events. Freshman Ayayna Bahati won both the 100m (18.39) and 300m (50.20) events with teammate Alexandria Williams taking the silver medal in both races. Williams ran 16.39 in the 100m and 50.85 in the 300m events.

Freshman Alero Soaris had a nice sixth place finish in the varsity 100 meters with a time of 12.89. Junior distance runner Anna Payton ran 12:59.76 to finish fifth in the 3200 meters and finished 14th in a field of 48 runners in the 1600m event.

The Culver boys also captured gold. Centaur discus thrower Nathan Stennett, senior, outshined the field with a throw of 109 feet 8 inches to capture first place. Seniors Diego Campos (96'6") and Jayden Porter (95'0") took third and fifth respectively. Freshman Adrian Simon finished fourth in the frosh/soph shot put event with a toss of 29 feet 9 inches.

The Culver boys also had medal finishes in the sprint events. In the 300m hurdles junior Desmond Dickson finished second with a time of 43.19. Jayden Evans and Andrew Brown finished fifth and seventh respectively in the 100m sprint.

In the long distant events Brandon Cummings had a fine second place finish with a time of 10:19.13 in the 3200 meters. Max Jordan, senior, finished seventh in the 1600 meters with a time of 4:42.37. Jordan finished tenth in the 3200m event.

Culver boys 4x400 #1 relay team took silver in the event behind Serra High. Their second squad took seventh out of the 29 event relay teams. The Cuvler boys first team finished fourth in a strong 4x100 meter relay contest behind Serra, Dorsey and Hamilton. Their second foursome finished a respectable 11th out of 34 relay teams.

The Centaurs' sprint medley relay team just finished out of first place with a time of 1:38.79 to gold medal Hamilton High who ran a 1:38.22. The Culver boys relay teams finished third and seventh respectively out of 29 teams in the distance medley relay event.

Culver girl frosh/soph jumpers captured first and third place in their triple jump event. Freshman Jazmin White leaped 30 feet 2 inches for the gold while sophomore Dionna Goodman-Davis jumped 26'2" for bronze. Goodman-Davis also finished fifth in the long jump with a leap of 12 feet 4.25 inches. Freshmen Savannah Smith and Jazmin White finished sixth and eighth in the varsity long jump.

The Culver girls varsity 4x400 relay team took home silver in their event while their teammates finished fourth and sixth in the 4x100m relay event. The 4x800 team also took sixth place. The girls distance medley relay team took home bronze in the event while their sprint medley relay teams finished in fifth and seventh place.

The 2018 Culver City Invitational Relay participants (League: Schools) - Coast: Dorsey, Hamilton, LACES, Palisades Charter, Venice and View Park Prep. South Bay (SBAA): Beverly Hills, Culver City, El Segundo, Santa Monica and South Torrance. Camino Del Rey (CDRA): Bishop Montgomery, Serra and Verbum Dei.

Coastal: Geffen Academy, Wildwood and Wiseburn – Da Vinci. Los Angeles: Burton Technology Academy. Century: Canyon (Anaheim). Golden: Highland. Mission/Sunshine: Flintridge Sacred Heart. Rio Hondo: La Canada. San Gabriel Valley: Lynwood. Southern: Samueli Academy. Sunset: Newport Harbor.

Up next, the Culver track and field team has a meet this Wednesday at Culver City with Bellarmine-Jefferson High and St. Bernard High. They travel this weekend to take on strong competition at the Long Beach Relays on Saturday, March 10. The Centaurs first league meet is Saturday, March 15 at El Segundo High.

Fred Altieri

Culver varsity boys 4x100 relay (L-R) - Richard Reliford, Tyler Lucket, Dominick Tatums and Jayden Evans

The track and field season home-opener was just the kind of start the Centaur program was expecting. Beaton: "When you're winning you're going to have fun. And you could see the girls were having fun. Overall we did well as a team. We're where we need to be. I'm satisfied."