The Central California Athletic League track and field season is underway, with student-athletes from Turlock and Pitman high schools getting off to hot starts over the first meets of the year.
While each program had its fair share of dominant first-place finishers, it was Turlock that cruised to the top of the team leaderboards at the opening meets.
The boys got things started on Feb. 25 at Joe Debely Stadium, with the Bulldogs winning with 314 points, while the Pride were the runner-up with a score of 83. Then at the girls meet on March 4 at the Pitman High campus, Turlock won with 237 points, far ahead of runner-up Gregori’s 73.
GIRLS MEET
Brooke Schumacher’s Turlock High School record mark in the pole vault lasted less than a year, broken by junior Emma Trevor.
Trevor, who qualified to last year’s state meet alongside the since-graduated Schumacher with a matching 11-foot, 3-inch mark at the Sac-Joaquin Section Masters, recorded a vault of 12 feet even to break the former Bulldog’s previous school record by three inches. Schumacher set the previous all-time best mark of 11 feet, 9 inches at the 2025 CCAL Championships at Joe Debely Stadium, breaking her old record by an inch.
The pole vault win was one of two for Trevor at the opening CCAL meet last week, as she also posted the top mark in the long jump with a leap of 16 feet, 6.5 inches.
In other field events at the CCAL opener, junior Haley Stiles won in the high jump with a height of five feet, four inches, clearing Trevor’s runner-up mark by four inches.
In the shot put, reigning CCAL champion Saveena Gadri continued her dominance with a throw of 34 feet, 1.5 inches, winning by nearly three full inches.
Out on the track, Turlock junior Mylie Olson was able to fend off opponents by just under a second in multiple events to claim a pair of first place finishes. At 400 meters, Olson posted a time of 1:05.07 to beat out sophomore teammate Claire Johnson by .81 seconds. In the 800-meter race, Olson finished in 2:26.42 to edge out Grgeori’s Elise Rojas by .13 seconds.
Johnson joined Ashley Diaz, Petra Navaroo Jerner and Gretchen Nass in winning the 4x400 relay with a time of 4:29.40, beating an Enochs team by nearly 10 seconds.
Nass, a junior, was an individual top placer as the Bulldogs and Pride split the hurdle events. Nass won the 100-meter event in 17.15 seconds, a nearly 30-second advantage over Gregori runner-up Kearra Phillips. In the 300-meter hurdles, Pitman senior Nayeli Mattison won with a time of 50.17 seconds, besting Nass’s mark of 52.29 seconds.
BOYS MEET
Senior Camden Smith won multiple events for Turlock, including the premier 100-meter dash in 11.49 seconds, besting Downey’s Josiah Quintana by .03 seconds. He also won in the 110-meter hurdles at 15.11 seconds, an advantage of .16 seconds over Pitman junior Dante Jenkins.
As for Jenkins, he was a key part of the Pride’s first-place 4x100 relay team alongside Jordan Riley, Calvin Hamel and Jonathan Williams, which earned a time of 43.48 seconds, about .13 seconds quicker than Turlock’s team of Anthony Brown, Noel Garcia, Naythan Diaz and Preston Ayala.
Williams, a senior, won the other sprint at 200-meters with a time of 22.87 seconds, besting Turlock senior Ricardo Lacerda by a .10 second mark.
Senior Larson Wejmar of Turlock, one of the most dominant distance runners in the region in recent years, continued to do just that, winning the 1600 in 4:41.71 and the 3200 at 10:10.39.
Turlock junior Max Johnson was a multiple-event winner in the field events, taking the high jump with a leap of five feet, eight inches, as well as the triple jump with a mark of 41 feet, five inches.
Over in the pole vault, Lacerda earned first with a mark of 14 feet even.
Junior teammate Tanner Linhares rounded out Turlock’s first-place finisher with a discus hurl of 146 feet, four inches.
Pitman’s Jackson King, a junior, was victorious in the shot put by muscling a mark of 44 feet, four inches. He beat out Linhares by just two inches.
CCAL #2 ON DECK
The conference slate continues Wednesday, March 18 with the second CCAL boys meet from Don Lanphear Stadium on the campus of Gregori High School in Modesto. The girls will continue their league season Wednesday, April 1, also in Modesto at the Enochs High campus.
