Track & Field: Sea Kings sweep Battle of the Bay

The Corona del Mar and Newport Harbor track and field teams usually face each other once a year, in the Battle of the Bay meet.

The archrivals have been running into each other a lot lately.

The Sailors train at CdM a couple of times during the week because their track isn’t available. Newport Harbor has shut down Davidson Field for upcoming renovations.

“We have to be good neighbors,” Sea Kings Coach Bill Sumner said.

Sharing facilities with your rival is one thing, opening the season against them is another thing.

The Sea Kings played host to the Sailors in the annual showdown on Wednesday, and the final event determined who won the boys’ meet.

Sumner watched his 4x400-meter relay team, anchored by Austin Baxter, rally to win the race and meet. The CdM boys edged Newport Harbor, 64-63, sweeping the two meets, the CdM girls won, 89-34.

“I was a little surprised,” Sumner said of winning with the boys. “We made a couple of mistakes early and it was hard to recover because there’s no wiggle room. When we recovered, I was pretty happy about that.”

Sumner turned to Baxter late. He got to him right before the senior was going to bite into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“We need you!” Sumner told Baxter, who put away the sandwich.

Baxter, who had already finished first in the 110 high hurdles (17.43 seconds) and 300 intermediate hurdles (41.06), got ready. And he had some catching up to do when it was his turn to run with the baton.

Newport Harbor’s Sawyer Farmer had about a 10-meter lead on Baxter, until Baxter passed him up with 150 meters to go, helping CdM finish in 3 minutes 33.78 seconds, a little more than two seconds ahead of the Sailors.

“This was a race that I really knew that I had to finish off,” said Baxter, who was part of a relay that included Chris Lin, Mika Grasso and Leif Hellgren. “I wasn’t expecting to run this race in the beginning, but the score was a lot closer than we anticipated. I got thrown in there.”

Afterward, Baxter looked for his lunch bag, the one with the sandwich inside.

“I told him he can have his sandwich now,” Sumner said with a smile.

The Sailors gave CdM a meet by finishing 1-2-3-4 in the shotput, Cole Smith won with a throw of 58 feet, 4½ inches, as well as the discus throw with a heave of 171-8, and 1-2-3 in the 800, which Erik Herrera claimed in 2:07.

Other Newport Harbor winners included Bentley Wilson, who swept the 1,600 (4:33.66) and 3,200 (10:29.62), Dylan Campos (long jump, 18-4), and Lars Hedendal in the 200 (22.61) and as part of the 4x100 (40.45).

Hedendal, a junior, said he was proud of how the Sailors performed, especially not having a track to train on at Newport Harbor.

“It’s [been] pretty crazy,” Hedendal said. “Since we have the track under construction, we either go on a field next to our football field and we just do some resistance training with some tires and leashes. It’s really a homemade setup, or we go to a street called Santiago. It’s kind of in the neighborhood. It’s kind of a weird place to run, but we do a lot of uphill training there and I think that really helps.

“We’re sprinters, so we haven’t actually come [to CdM] officially [to train]. But me and my relay team on Saturdays … we’ve been coming here actually to, you know, warm up, do some block starts, do some relay handoffs. We come on our own and that’s a big part of it.”

Newport Harbor boys’ coach Nowell Kay said the Sailors are at a competitive disadvantage right now because they don’t practice on a track on a daily basis.

The home-field advantage belonged to the Sea Kings, who also saw Sutty Barbato (100, 10.69), Lin (400, 54.12), Ben Puglia (triple jump, 31-6½) and Chase Grippo (high jump, 5-6) take first in their respective events.

The girls’ competition was one-sided.

Alyssa McKenzie led the Sea Kings, finishing first in the 200 (26.20) and she anchored the 4x100 to the top. The relay team, which finished in 51.18, featured Paige Damron, Morgan Simon and Simona Bocancea.

Emma Kratzberg claimed the 100 hurdles (14.69) and 300 hurdles (46.26), while Rebecca Polaha won the triple jump (27-2½) and high jump (4-8) and Amanda Cooper swept the shotput (31-9¾) and discus throw (121-1).

Other CdM first-place finishers included Lilly Schmidt (800, 2:26.22), Raquel Powers (1,600, 5:19.38), Jacqueline Choe (3,200, 12:15.14), and Erika Anderson, Katie Sullivan, Lauren Griffin and Schmidt, members of the 4x400. Newport Harbor’s winners were Paige Fults (100, 12.70), Helen Coyne (400, 1:03.67) and Kylee Seeber (long jump, 14-1).

“Definitely a lot of nerves coming into [the Battle of the Bay],” said McKenzie, a freshman at CdM. “Playing Newport Harbor is always just a good time. We always just try a little harder than normal.”