On March 19, Malibu High School hosted the largest athletic event in the school’s history: its seventh annual preseason invitational track and field meet.
What began as a two-team meet before the regular season started in 2004 has grown into a full-fledged “track-a-palooza,” with more than 760 athletes from 21 schools attending. The athletes came from high schools as far away as Orange County and Santa Barbara.
While the meet has grown steadily since its inauspicious beginning, this year’s participation nearly doubled that of last year. That brings not only great competition, but logistical obstacles as well. MHS head Track Coach John Cary put the MHS athletes to work and recruited two of the visiting schools’ coaching staff to help officiate the field events. MHS parents volunteered, too, and provided tremendous support in staging and timing the races. Team entry fees generated more than $3,000 for the track program. MHS cheerleaders operated the snack shack for the second year running and raised enough money to fund a cheerleading team trip to an upcoming out-of-state competition.
Malibu High had quite a successful day. Every MHS athlete set personal records in their events. Particularly notable were first place performances turned in by the varsity boys 4×100 and 4×400 relay teams of Austin Daniels, Sam Haft, Saadiq Hassan and Montrail Yates.
Cary, who has been coaching the team for the past seven years, said, “The kids gave everything they had out there. They’ve been training hard and it really showed in their performances.”
Visiting teams were impressed with how smoothly the day ran, and have already pledged their participation for next season. Coach Cary has his sights set on breaking the 800-athlete mark.
The Shark’s last league meet of the season is Thursday, May 5, 3 p.m., at MHS.