By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
St. Joseph Academy is advancing a solid group of athletes to state after Thursday’s performances at the TAPPS Class 6A South Regional Meet at Heroes Stadium in San Antonio.
The TAPPS Track & Field State Meet is scheduled May 5-6 in Waco.
The top two finishers in each event Thursday qualified for state.
“We actually competed very well compared to the other schools,” SJA assistant coach Ben Sandoval said. “We didn’t have the quantity (of athletes) some of the other schools had.
“We’re taking a very good contingent over there (to Waco),” he added.
San Antonio Antonian won the meet’s boys division with 203 points and SJA was second with 184. The SJA girls did not finish in the top three spots in its team standings.
Highlighting the day for SJA were two first-place boys relays that set school records. They were the 400- and 800-meter relays. Members of the relays were Kai Money, Keaton Cackley, Miguel Guerra and Mario Garcia.
The Bloodhounds won the 800 relay in 1 minute, 30.26 seconds and took first in the 400 relay in 43.08 seconds.
Marte Rodriguez was a double-winner for SJA in the 110 and 300 hurdles with times of 16.40 seconds and 41.31 seconds, respectively.
Garcia and Guerra finished first and second in the 200 dash in 22.84 and 23.62 seconds, respectively.
In the boys field events, SJA’s Pablo Zolezzi won the discus with a throw of 136 feet, 9 inches, while teammate Ricardo Miner was second with a 136-1 effort. Miner won the shot put with a toss of 51-10.
Also for the Bloodhounds, Michael Lopez was second in the pole vault with an 11-6 clearance.
SJA recorded four first places in the girls division, including two by hurdler Gaby Garza.
Garza, coming off a strong showing at the Texas Relays earlier this month, won the 100 hurdles (15.61) and the 300 hurdles (46.63).
Also for the SJA girls, Leslie de la Llata took first in the discus with a throw of 92-4 and Camryn Gloor won the pole vault with a clearance of 9-6.
The Lady Bloodhounds had a couple of third-place relays that also might advance to Waco once all the TAPPS state meet qualifiers have been determined elsewhere around Texas this weekend.