Harvard-Westlake Accomplishes Mission Against Notre Dame

Invitational track and field meets are for setting school records and career bests.

Dual meets are for scoring as many points as possible in an effort to help your team win.

Coach Jonas Koolsbergen of Harvard-Westlake High took that attitude into a Mission League meet Thursday against Notre Dame and it resulted in a 67 1/2-59 1/2 victory that put the Wolverines in position to win their second consecutive league title.

Harvard-Westlake (8-0, 4-0 in league meets) had few notable marks in the meet contested in hot, windy conditions, but Koolsbergen and Wolverines such as senior Becky Rauth didn’t care after beating a favored Notre Dame team for the second season in a row.

“Today was all about going for points,” Rauth said. “I was doing things that I don’t usually do.”

Rauth, who moved to 10th on the all-time region list in the 300-meter low hurdles with a school-record 43.75 in the seeded race of the Arcadia Invitational on Saturday night, won the 300 lows in hand-timed 46.2 and the 100 high hurdles in a wind-aided 14.7.

In addition, she placed second in the triple jump at 31-10 and third in the long jump at 14-4 1/2.

“I didn’t jump very well in either one of those events and I’m not real happy about that,” Rauth said. “[The coaches] put me there in order to score a lot of points and I didn’t do that.”

Koolsbergen said Rauth’s sub-par performances in the jumps made the victory more satisfying.

“The team showed a lot of character,” he said. “Becky blew up in the long jump but the team held it together and didn’t get down. It’s easy to get in a situation like that and say, ‘Oh man, we messed up. We might as well give up.’ But they kept going. They didn’t look back.”

Harvard-Westlake led, 25-16, after the long jump, but Notre Dame (4-1, 3-1) narrowed its deficit to 34 1/2-33 1/2 after sophomore Sierra Hauser-Price won the 100 in a wind-aided 11.9 and freshman Tracey Johnson won the high jump with a career-best 5-4.

Harvard-Westlake countered with a 1-2-3 sweep in the 800 and Rauth’s victory in the 300 lows, however, to take a 48 1/2-37 1/2 lead with five events left.

Junior Alice Graham placed first in the 800 in 2:44.6 for the Wolverines and won the 1,600 in 5:51.0 and the 3,200 in 13:00.0 as Harvard-Westlake outscored Notre Dame, 25-2, in those events.

Notre Dame (4-1, 3-1) defeated Harvard-Westlake, 91-36, in the boys’ meet with Todd Fenton winning the 100 in a wind-aided 10.6, the 200 in a career-best 21.9 and running on the victorious 400 relay team that clocked 44.4.