Plenty of Gold Standards from Golden State Elites at Arcadia

Apr 10, 2018

Illinois' Katelynne Hart, Buchanan's Corie Smith and Redwood's Gillian Wagner were among the seven girls who put up US top-9 times in the 3,200 meters on Saturday night at Arcadia (Clark Kranz photo)

While the venerable Arcadia Invitational, now 51 years old, is the largest in-season meet on the calendar in California, it is hardly a CA-only event.

Austin Kratz of Pennsylvania, Cameron Murray of Georgia, Eric Allen Jr. of Maryland, Luis Peralta of New Jersey, Tyler Cronk of Washington, the boys 4x1 relay team from Chandler, Arizona, Emily Sloan of Colorado, Masai Russell and the girls from the Bullis School in Maryland, Sterling Lester of Georgia, Makayla Kelby and the athletes from Lees Summit West in Missouri, Jai Gruenwald from Arizona, Alysia Allen from Nevada, Lexi Ellis from Washington, the girls distance team from Pine Crest in Florida, and Katelynne Hart of Illinois all are traveling home from California with top-place medals from the two-day meet held under ideal conditions - weather unlike many of those athletes have seen in months.

While many of the nation's best came to compete with most of the best from the Golden State, the CA athletes more than held their own in the big picture.

There were 1,189 elite performances at Arcadia, including 481 that met the "Gold" standard. Of those 481, 320 were from CA, nearly equally divided between boys and girls.

While we've highlighted performances from the CIF-Southern Section and CIF-San Diego Section in other articles, this report is designed to highlight top performances from CA's other eight sections.

Note that because of weather challenges across the country, many of the non-CA athletes were competing outdoors for the first time this season. It is also a factor to keep in mind when looking at national rankings. CA athletes are highly ranked in the US right now, marks that may hold their ranking as the season cranks up elsewhere across the country, or may not.