APTOS — Aptos High’s Indra Lyons could feel the heat.
All it did was make her run faster.
The defending Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League champion in the 100-meter hurdles took the best the league had to offer and used it as motivation, running a personal best to repeat as a league champion at Saturday’s league finals in Aptos.
Lyons, a junior, dusted the rest of the field to win in 15.96 seconds.
She beat league rival Chloe Kimes, the defending SCCAL 300 hurdles champion who dropped into the 100 hurdles this season and had been a thorn in Lyons’ side all season.
Head-to-head, Lyons had struggled to beat Kimes, a senior from Soquel High, throughout the season. But with a league title up for grabs, Lyons came through.
“That was like a fire under my butt,” Lyons said of having Kimes running in the same event. “It kept me motivated.”
Lyons’ victory was decisive.
The Mariners’ team victory was not.
Aptos finished Saturday’s SCCAL Finals with the second-most points (123) but beat first place Santa Cruz High (134) via a league bylaw that had not been evoked in the 20-plus years since it was voted into the league rulebook. Because the Mariners finished undefeated (8-0) in league dual meets and both Santa Cruz and San Lorenzo Valley High finished 6-1-1, all Aptos had to do in order to win its first title since 2014, was finish no worse than second.
It did just that despite the Herculean effort of Santa Cruz senior Mari Friedman, who won the Bob Enzweiler Award after going a perfect 4-of-4 on the day. She won the 800, 1,600, 3,200 and ran the anchor leg on the victorious 4×400 relay.
“It’s brutal,” admitted Aptos second-year head coach Zach Hewett. “With a girl like Mari, what else could she do? She’s a champion in every way. It’s kind of a cruel bait-and-switch.”
He added: “But we did what we had to.”
And they were crowned champions because of it.
S.L.V. finished third (99.5), Soquel was fourth (62), St. Francis High took fifth (29), Scotts Valley High placed sixth (28) and Mt. Madonna (9.5) edged Harbor High (7) for seventh.
Aptos also had sophomores Brynn Mitchell and Natalia Ackerman win individual titles.
Mitchell edged teammate Sachi Land, a senior, for the long jump title with a leap of 16 feet, 8 3/4 inches, and recorded a winning jump of 36-2.75 in the triple jump.
Ackerman, who missed a majority of last season with an ankle injury, continued her impressive campaign in the high jump by clearing 5-2, a personal best and the top mark in the league this season.
“Everything felt really good,” said Ackerman, who also competed in the 4×100 relay, 100 and long jump. “I think my adrenaline from the 100 helped my speed a lot.”
Lyons, Mitchell and Ackerman will return to the track in two weeks’ time for the Central Coast Section semifinals at Gilroy High.
So too will Aptos star senior distance runner Marea Zlatunich, who finished runner-up to Friedman in the 1,600 and 3,200 with times of 5:04.5 and 11:14.75, respectively. A three-time CCS finalist headed to NCAA Division I Berkeley in the fall, Zlatunich said she feels healthy, focused and determined heading into the final half of her season.
“This is the first time I’ve been healthy at this point of any track season since freshman year,” said Zlatunich, who had to bow out of last year’s SCCAL Finals with a leg injury. “I feel fresh. I feel strong. I’m running the times I want to run. I want to make it to state and I feel like I definitely can.”
Aptos will also send senior Sofia Natividad to CCS. She finished third in the 3,200 (11:20.44) but qualified by beating the section’s at-large time.
Fellow Mariner Peyton Masuen, a junior, took second in the discus (95-5) to advance to CCS.
Land will also compete at CCS in the long jump (16-8.5).
St. Francis High senior Samantha Bellucci also earned a spot at CCS by resetting her school record in the high jump (5-0), and recording a season-best in the triple jump (34-3.5). She finished second in both events.
“Today I was just in a really good mood,” Bellucci said. “I was like, ‘yeah, let’s do it.’ And I did.”
Mt. Madonna is also sending an athlete to CCS. Sophomore thrower Paola Jacobs will be the first-ever Hawk to compete at the section meet. She finished second in the shot put at 29-3.5 behind S.L.V.’s Nina Valera (29-4.25).
