Senior trio to represent area at state track and field meet
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Given his druthers, Viet Le would prefer to take all semblance of pressure off the table.
Fountain Valley’s standout pole vaulter has had a lot of fun in his senior year, pushing the boundaries of his personal performance.
As time has run out on his prep career, though, the Army West Point commit has seen a return of that pressure, like it or not. It’s the weight of expectations, his own more than anything else.
Le brought his best to the big stage in the CIF Southern Section Masters track and field meet on Saturday at Moorpark High, matching his personal record with a 15-foot, 6-inch height clearance to become a state qualifier for the first time.
“I was really excited, because last year, Masters was one of my worst meets of the season,” said Le, who posted a mark of 14-2 and placed 14th in a 19-athlete competition as a junior. “I guess the pressure of everything got to me.
“This year, I was very determined, now that I had some experience under my belt going into Masters with how everything felt,” Le added. “Just had to deal with the raised runway and the extra feeling of everything. … Going in, I just made sure to stay composed. … I was sitting there [on my phone], just tracking who cleared the 15-foot bar. Only six people had cleared the 15 bar, so instantly, all six of us had qualified for state.”
On his last attempt, Le cleared the 15-6 bar for the third time this season, a special mark for him, as it was also his winning height in the Orange County track and field championships this season.
Le still has the school record of 15-8, established by Blake Mason at the Sunset League finals in 2008, on his mind. Fountain Valley pole vault coach Jeremy Stahl said he believes Le is the first state qualifier for the Barons in the event since BJ Vandrovec in 2001. Vandrovec is currently coaching at JSerra.
“I was like two centimeters off on the standards,” Le said of his first attempt at the 16-foot bar on Saturday. “If the standards were two centimeters more shallow, that would have been like a first-attempt make, but it didn’t connect. … I’m really excited that I have another week to try to get that record.”
The CIF State track and field championships begin with the preliminaries on Friday, May 29 at Clovis Buchanan High. The finals follow on Saturday.
Corona del Mar senior Colton Eggleston punched his ticket to state under difficult circumstances. After fouling on his first two attempts, he needed to post a competitive mark to keep himself alive.
Eggleston came through in the clutch, granting himself three additional jumps. On his fifth attempt, he soared to a mark of 22-6½, which earned the sixth and final automatic qualifying spot reserved for the Southern Section.
“I had a rough series — two bombs that fouled — and by that point, I just needed to crack the top six to guarantee that I was going to have another week,” said Eggleston, who is headed to his first state meet. “For me, that placement mark, which puts me at 22 out of 29 [state qualifiers], that’s not the best that I can do. I’m not really too concerned, but I am excited, of course, for the atmosphere.”
Newport Harbor senior Natalie McCarty, who previously competed in the state meet as a sophomore, qualified in the 100- and 300-meter hurdles.
Backed by a tailwind of 2.7 meters per second in the 100 high hurdles, above the threshold of 2.0 meters per second for record purposes, McCarty crossed eighth in an all-conditions lifetime-best time of 14.26 seconds, two hundredths of a second inside the at-large standard to advance on to state. Ten of 18 athletes across the two Masters heats wound up hitting the automatic state-qualifying time.
McCarty, bound for Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in the fall, placed third in the 300 intermediate hurdles in 43.05 seconds. It will be her second appearance at the state meet in the event.
