Arcadia Invitational
The 2004 version of the prestigious Arcadia Invitational
found the St. John Bosco Braves track team attempting to break
two highly coveted school records - the 25 year old 4 by one
mile school record and the distance medley record set in 2002
that was ranked 24th nationally.
The first of the two records (4 x mile) would be attempted
during the Friday night invitational section. In the race were
the two national leaders in that event, Shenendehowa and Red
Bank Regional, along with the Division I California State cross
country champions and runner up - Don Lugo and Royal. Running
for the Braves were juniors Randy Skillens and Kevin Urak,
sophomore Jon Batres, and senior Luis Uribe.
Skillens led off for his team to split a 4:26 mile and put
them in contention. Batres and Urak ran solid legs of 4:30
and 4:31 respectively - those two put their team in 5th place.
Anchoring the team was Uribe. He did all he could to help his
team place 3rd, but the gap was too much to make up - despite
his futile efforts Uribe still managed to run a split of 4:18
for a full mile.
Don Lugo finished first in a time of 17:23, Shenendehowa was
next in 17:39. Royal, Red Bank and Bosco all finished with
in seconds of each other in 17:43, 17:44 and 17:47. For the
Braves it was a new school record. It topped the previous 4
x mile school record by 15 seconds. Ironically the old record
set in 1979 included then senior Tim McIntosh. It was a fitting
tribute to the 25th anniversary of the 4 x mile and one the
four Braves were happy to be a part of.
In the Saturday portion of the meet the Braves again were
out to smash yet another school record. They had hoped to duplicate
the 15 second improvement that they had achieved the night
prior. The distance medley race also included a strong field
and the Braves looked to prove that they were able to run with
the best of them. In the end the team of Skillens, sophomore
Steve Caudillo, senior Mahesh Gandhi and Uribe were able to
better the school record from 10:25.50 to 10:25.13. Despite
the slight improvement the team knew they didn't quite accomplish
what they set out to do finishing a disappointing 7th place
and running well off the goal that they had set for themselves.
Still, their time was good enough to place them at #12 on the
national list for the year thus far.
Other action during this year's Arcadia Invitational saw Mahesh
Gandhi set a personal record and place himself at #3 all time
on the Bosco 800 meter list after running to a 1:56.56 time. |
