After winning the Central Coast Section Championships by a convincing margin, the Los Gatos High boys track and field team continued to surge in the CIF State Championships May 26-27 at Veterans Memorial Stadium at Buchanan High in Clovis.
The Wildcats finished 10th in the team standings out of 102 teams that scored, one of the best results in program history. Los Gatos received spectacular performances from athletes who have been doing it all season long.
The boys 4×400 meter relay team of Levi Romero, Jake Bohane, Brady Kamali and Wil Brennan took second in a personal-record of 3 minutes, 13.97 seconds, eclipsing their PR of 3:15.88 set fewer than 24 hours earlier in Friday’s preliminary heats.
The quartet’s time in the Finals set a new record by a CCS team and was truly an epic performance. Brennan and Romero also qualified for the open 400 meter final, finishing in seventh and eighth place, respectively. Sophomore Aydon Stefanopoulos continued his rise among the State’s elite in the distance events.
He finished in eighth place in the 1600 meters in a PR of 4:10.55. Three hours later, Stefanopoulos placed fourth in the 3200 in 8:57.99, beating his previous PR by over 2 ½ seconds set the previous week in the CCS Championships.
Stefanopoulos’ result was rather remarkable considering he was the only top-10 runner who did both the mile and two-mile races. Most opt for just one of the distance races because of the grueling task of trying to do both within a couple of hours of each other.
Stefanopoulos has dialed in his tactics and discipline, displaying a maturity on the track that eludes most until their senior year. In the 1600, he posted splits of 1:04, 1:04 and 1:03 before unleashing a 58-second final lap.
In the 3200, Stefanopoulos’ first seven laps were all within two seconds of each other—that’s professional level race pacing, folks—before he unleashed another one of his wicked kicks, covering the final 400 in 62 seconds. Stefanopoulos started his kick with about 600 meters to go, passing six runners en route to the finish.
Los Gatos had two girls—Nicole Steiner and Hannah Slover—who were in competition as well. Steiner, a sophomore, finished sixth in the shot put in 41-3 ¾. Slover, a senior and the 2022 state champion in the high jump, didn’t advance to the final round this time, placing 15th with a mark of 5-5.
Boys Golf
Los Gatos High had one of its best seasons in recent memory, becoming one of just eight teams that qualified for the CCS Finals May 16 at Laguna Seca Golf Ranch in Monterey.
The Wildcats finished with a score of 398, four strokes better than league rival Palo Alto, a team they battled all season long in Santa Clara Valley Athletic League De Anza Division play. In the CCS Finals, Kirin Desai led Los Gatos by shooting a 4-over par 76, good for 30th place overall.
Quin Cristofano and Theo Lohrer both shot a round of 78, Henry Wong a 81, Tyler Purcell a 85 and Kabir Khanna a 89. In the CCS Regional No. 2 a week prior, the team had three golfers go under 80. Lohrer shot a 1-over par 73, Khanna 75 and Wong 77.
