BY NATE KOTISSO | STAFF WRITER
McALLEN — Sean Skaugen won the 110-meter hurdles in each of the past two Meet of Champions, but the 2019 edition of the Rio Grande Valley’s largest track family reunion would hold special significance to him.
Not only would it be Skaugen’s final go-round, as a senior, but the finals were held in a familiar place for the McAllen Memorial Mustang: McAllen Veterans Memorial Stadium.
Skaugen’s 14.77 time in the 110 beat out Harlingen South’s Nitai Duran, who took silver with a 14.94 on Saturday.
“I had a lot riding on this,” Skaugen said of his win. “It’s my senior year, so I wanted to come out and win. I guess we had a little bit of an advantage since we were able to stay in our house (McAllen Veterans Memorial Stadium) a little bit longer. Our coaches have a lot of pride. They were telling us, ‘This is our stadium. Let’s not anyone come in and take it from us.’ A lot of us have run our season best here. It’s great to have this race here.”
“He was warmed up and ready to go,” McAllen Memorial boys track coach Tony Niemeier said. “His prelim time was a 14.74, which was actually a PR (personal record) for him, and he was close to it again tonight. It’s hard to repeat your best time ever for the second time in a week. We talked about him running at home and I think all of our seniors were excited about that. He’s working hard. His times are dropping. We’re just trying to get him to peak at the right time.”
Skaugen, a UTRGV signee, said his fast time this week is unlike his previous years when he would tend to mark a season-best a week or two after the Meet of Champions.
“Thank goodness it’s not up to me to pace,” Skaugen said. “That’s why we have our coaches trying to see what’s best for our workouts so we don’t peak too early and stay healthy. I have to give credit to our coaches there.”
WORK IN PROGRESS
Wet weather across the Valley this week dampened a few opportunities for athletes to prepare for the Meet of Champions.
The lack of practice affected the girls’ pole vault competition, namely Edcouch-Elsa senior Bianca Cardenas.
In Friday’s Meet of Champions Prelims, Cardenas’ 9-feet, 6-inch jump managed to win the heat and qualify her for the final Saturday. Cardenas’ 11-feet, 6-inch vault was good enough to win the gold over Port Isabel’s Marlyn Cesenes (10 feet, 6 inches) who earned silver and Sharyland High’s Karla Garza (10 feet) who took home the bronze.
“It wasn’t what I was expecting,” Cardenas said. “At first, the wind was pretty difficult. But as I started jumping, I had more momentum with it. I did what I could with the conditions that were going on.”
“She didn’t get any work on the pole vault this week because of the weather,” Edcouch-Elsa girls track Juan Aguinaga said. “It’s been raining almost every day, so it kind of threw her off. She should do a lot better next week.”
Cardenas, a Texas A&M signee, will try to redeem herself next week at the 92nd Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays on the University of Texas campus in Austin.
“It’s going to be about competing with my bigger pole and getting more consistent with it,” Cardenas said. “The more consistent and confident I am, I’ll hopefully PR up there. I’m aiming for a 13’6” or a 13’9.” That would be higher than 13’3,” which is my current PR.”
A-ROD’S A-BOMB
The boys shot put featured some of the top all-around athletes in the Valley. PSJA Southwest thrower Diego Treviño is already signed to compete at Oklahoma, Harlingen South’s Andrew Ott signed on at Kansas State and Sharyland Pioneer senior Parker Barrett is getting a few looks from NCAA Div. I track programs in Texas.
However, a junior from La Joya High stood above the competition Saturday. Alex Rodriguez’s throw of 58-feet, 5-inches earned the gold medal.
“I tried to not put too much pressure on myself because I’m only a junior,” Rodriguez said. “You just had to go up there confident and believe in what you do.”
Rodriguez’s 58-feet, 5-inch toss wasn’t his best of the season. On Feb. 22, Rodriguez threw a personal-best of 60 feet, 1.75 inches at the Mission Invitational.
“He’s learned to adjust to being one of the top throwers in the Valley,” La Joya High co-throwing coach Juan Guajardo said. “He finished second in the prelims on Friday just to advance, so he felt like the pressure was off today. He sees it as a chess game. ‘If I’m in the lead, they’re going to have to follow me.’”
“As far as the technicality of it, he’s always watching videos to see how he can get better,” La Joya High co-throwing coach Robert Garza said. “He studies a lot and that’s helped him a lot. He knows that we need to study just as hard as he does. That makes it better for us.”
POTPOURRI
Among the other standouts in McAllen was McAllen High’s Aniah Chaleff-Reyna. The Baylor signee won the triple jump, long jump and participated in the gold medal 400-meter relay team. Sharyland Pioneer’s Barrett won the high jump with a leap of 6 feet, 8inches. PSJA Memorial senior Cruz Gomez won the 3200-meter run with a time of 9 minutes, 14.2 seconds, a season-best.