The Cupertino Courier

Sports

Mustangs' Engle, Mats' Minderler, Simon compete in state meet

By Dick Sparrer

The flags of the United States and California waved majestically over the Capitol Park grounds at the State Capitol Building last weekend. But it wasn't just Old Glory and the Bear Flag flying high in Sacramento on Saturday--so was Saratoga High School high jumper Kiersten Dolbec.

The Saratoga sophomore, coming off a championship effort at the Central Coast Section finals the week before, tied for eighth in the high jump at the state finals held Saturday at Hughes Stadium in Sacramento.

Dolbec, who topped 5-6 to win her CCS title, cleared 5-5 in the state prelims on Friday to earn her place in the finals, then jumped 5-3 on Saturday to match the eighth-place height of Moria Robinson of Mt. Whitney High School. Robinson ended up eighth based on fewer misses.

Dolbec won the battle of the underclassmen at the section meet. Her 5-6 was good for a win with Prospect sophomore Kristin Rimbach second at 5-4. Aptos junior Janelle Coulter also topped 5-4, but finished third. All three advanced to state with senior Maureen Ajoku of Santa Teresa and Helena Montin of Monta Vista sharing fourth at 5-2, both just missing the cut. Freshman Alissa Hayes of Homestead alto topped 5-2 but finished in a sixth-place tie with Leland senior Dana McKenzie based on the number of jumps.

Monta Vista seniors Marissa Minderler and Bill Simon and Homestead junior Sarah Engle each earned state trips with their efforts at the CCS meet.

Minderler raced to a third in the 100-meter dash in 12.41 at the section meet, but at state her 12.57 couldn't get her to the finals. She finished 28th in the prelims.

Simon was third in the boys 800 in 1:55.91 at CCS, good for a state berth. He finished 17th in Friday's preliminaries in 1:56.49.

Engle was fourth in the pole vault in the section finals, but her 11-8 effort was good enough to qualify her for the state meet. She topped 11-3 in Sacramento to tie for 12th, but only the top eight moved on to Saturday's finals.

Juniors Elisa Leung of Monta Vista and Stephanie Glick of Cupertino each placed at CCS but barely missed qualifying for state spots. Leung was fourth in the long jump at 17-7.75 and fifth in the triple jump at 35-10, and Glick was fourth in the triple jump at 36-2.

Freshman Natasha Sakellar and sophomore Jean Feng of Monta Vista also placed at the section finals. Sakellar was seventh in the 400 in 58.23 and Feng was 10th in the 3,200 in 11:20.48.

Mt. Pleasant won the girls CCS title with 96 points and Monta Vista and Saratoga tied for seventh with St. Ignatius, all three teams with 16 points--two behind sixth-place Soquel. Valley Christian (second at 40), Milpitas (third at 34), Aptos (fourth at 32) and Archbishop Mitty (fifth at 24) also finished in the top 10.

In the boys CCS meet, seniors Sameer Thadani of Lynbrook raced to a sixth in the 200 meters in 22.83.