APTOS — Aptos High’s 4×100-meter relay set the tone, and the Mariners’ horde of athletes did the rest.
The quartet of Jordan Kadlecek, Anthony Cardenas-Ramos, Diego Hammana and Hunter Matys set the track at Trevin Dilfer Field ablaze with a time of 43.98 seconds — a little less than half a second off the school record — and the Mariners’ boys cruised to their fourth Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League championship in the last five years on Saturday.
“Today, everything went perfect for us,” said Matys, a junior.
And even when things didn’t, the Mariners’ depth masked their flaws.
Aptos, undefeated in league dual meets this season, amassed 178 total points with a flurry of top six finishes. Santa Cruz High was second with 109 points. San Lorenzo Valley High (72), Scotts Valley High (68), Soquel High (47) and St. Francis High (18) rounded out the scoring in the SCCAL.
“Kids put aside their individual achievements for the good of the team,” said Aptos second-year head coach Zach Hewett.
Aptos won four other events aside from the opening relay.
Kadlecek, a senior, flew to a pair of wins in the long jump and triple jump with leaps of 21 feet, 2 1/2 inches and 43-9.75, respectively, after running the lead leg of the relay. Matys edged Cardenas-Ramos for first in the 100 by a tenth of a second. And senior Alex Austen set a personal best in the shot put with a toss of 47-6 to win the title.
The Mariners also had 24 other top-6 finishes.
“The depth really showed,” Hewett said.
All three league champions and the winning relay will advance to the Central Coast Section semifinals at Gilroy High on May 19.
Aptos seniors Jackson Schenone and Owen Mastropietro, juniors Nathan Arellano and Cardenas-Ramos, and sophomore Lytrell Francis will also continue their season in two weeks’ time after runner-up finishes in their respective events.
Schenone was second in the 1,600 (4:33.9) and 3,200 (10:11.61). Mastropietro placed second in the 110 hurdles (15.42). Arellano finished runner-up behind Austen in the shot put (43-5.25) and also took second in the discus (130-1). Cardenas-Ramos will advance in both the 100 (11.53) and 200 (23.05). And Francis made the cut in the triple jump (40-7).
St. Francis junior Justin Parker punched his ticket to CCS for the second consecutive season. He’ll head to the section meet as the SCCAL champion in the 200.
After taking third in the 100 earlier in the day, Parker scored a bit of revenge by edging both Cardenas-Ramos and Matys in the 200 in 22.94.
“That really fired me up. It was heartbreaking,” Parker said of placing third in the 100. “It feels great to win. Losing isn’t so fun.”
The 100 was hyped as a two-horse race between Matys and Parker, but Cardenas-Ramos snuck in-between the two with a last-second lean.
Matys, who entered Saturday with the league’s top mark this season (11.22), said the event was everything he expected. He won in 11.43.
“It was a battle,” said Matys, who also took sixth in the long jump (18-8.75). “I knew [Parker] was going to come for me in the 200.”
Austen will also head back to the CCS meet for the second straight season. A standout offensive lineman on the school’s football team headed to NCAA Division III Grinnell University in Iowa, Austen said he was a bit disappointed because his warm-up throws in the shot put were better than his final winning mark.
“That’s always the case, isn’t it?” he joked.
Austen last season advanced to the CCS Finals in the discus, but he won’t have the opportunity to improve on his eighth-place finish after scratching on all of his throws in the event on Saturday.
“I needed to relax more,” Austen said. “That was disappointing.”
The good news: his season goes on.
“I’ll just have to clean up my technique,” Austen said. “Throws are mostly technique. I know I’m not going to get much stronger over the next two weeks.”
