Culver City Observer -

It's time once again to lace up the spikes, align the hurdles, rake the long jump pits, set up the padded pits for vaulting, line the fields for the throwing events, fire the starting pistols, hand off the relay batons and hand out the medals. This Saturday morning, March 7, the 2020 Culver City Invitational Track and Field Meet will showcase 20 local high school programs and some of the best athletic talent in the area beginning at 10:00 a.m. sharp at the Culver City High School track.

Besides host school Culver City High, the participating schools include Beverly Hills, Cathedral , Centennial, Chadwick, El Segundo, Flintridge, Geffen Academy, Hamilton, Highland, Kennedy, Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (LACES), North Torrance, Notre Dame Academy, Palisades, Santa Monica, St. Anthony, St. Mary's, View Park and Windward. The 20 schools will enter 38 different teams total, including varsity girls, frosh/soph girls, varsity boys and frosh/soph boys.

Last year's Invitational was a success with 17 schools representing six league associations participating: Coast, South Bay, Del Rey, Coastal and Los Angeles. The 2019 highlights included the exciting Girls Varsity 100m dash, where St. Bernard's Sydney Bentley just edged out Culver City's 100m phenom, Kayla Barnes by .03 of a second. In the Boys 100m, El Segundo's Elijah Dunn out-leaned Brandon Upper of North Torrance to take the gold.

Culver City's Arman Rostamian won the 1600m event by less than two seconds over sophomore Anthony Alvarez of Highland. Centaur hurdler Desmond Dickson won gold in the 300m Hurdles event, just ahead of John Solomon and Caleb Zerihun of Santa Monica. Alexandria Williams raced to first in the Girls 300m Hurdles as Culver City captured three of top four finishes. Sophomore Ayahna Bahati and freshman Kennady Iverson placed third and fourth, respectively.

In the relay events, the Culver City girls combined for gold in the 4x100m event as they nosed out St. Mary's Academy by a tenth of a second. The Culver girls had a slightly easier time in the 4x400m event, winning by more than six seconds over Palisades Charter. The Culver City girls 4x400m Team 2 finished fourth. Interesting is that Culver City girls frosh/soph relay squad finished first in their 4x400m event with a time of 4:30.20, which would have been good enough for bronze in the same varsity event.

The Centaur boys excelled in their relay events in last year's Invitational. They took gold in the 4x100m, edging North Torrance by .04 of a second. The Culver boys 4x400m relay team beat Santa Monica by over two seconds. The Vikings got revenge in the 4x800m event, beating the Centaurs by over 12 seconds. As expected, in the Sprint Medley Relay event featuring sequential legs of 100m, 100m, 200m and 400 meters, Culver City turned the tide on Santa Monica, beating the Vikings by a mere 1.53 seconds.

In the field events, Culver City's Jamal Glaspie took the Boys High Jump event with freshmen William Shultz and Tyler Dimant jumping to fourth and fifth place, respectively. Daniel Revah of Beverly Hills took the Boys Pole Vault event, out-vaulting Rintaro Takashima of North Torrance by a foot. Demani Jamison of Highland won the Boys Long Jump event with Culver's Jahmal Glaspie taking bronze.

In the Girls Long Jump event, Tyler Jones of El Segundo held off a half-dozen Culver girls to take gold. Centaurs Savannah Smith, Nicole Martinez, Leah Clark, Jasmine Watson-Rice, Jazmin White and Cmone Garrett placed: silver, bronze, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth, respectively. Savannah Smith also took gold in the Girls Triple Jump event with White and Watson-Rice taking fifth and sixth. With many of the area's athletes returning primed for this season, the 2020 Culver City Invitational promises to be even faster, higher and better.