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Stone, Byers, Curtin steal show at All-City meet
By ERIC BRANCH
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Published: Friday, May 7, 2010
Santa Rosa's Reesey Byers won the 3200 meter race with a time of 9:18.00 ahead of Piner's Luis Luna
who came in with a a time of 9:18.64 during the All-City track meet held at Santa Rosa High School, May 7, 2010.
As her class valedictorian, a relentless community volunteer and the student voted “Most Likely to Make a Difference”
by her senior class, Ursuline's Michelle Stone isn't your typical teenager.
In fact, for the latter part of her junior year, Stone even seemed impervious to being humbled by the pole vault,
a technique-stuffed event in which success is often measured an inch at a time.
But nearly a year after her stunning breakthrough — Stone vaulted from utter obscurity to a seventh-place finish at
the nation's most prestigious state meet — she arrived at the 27th annual All-City Meet at Santa Rosa High on Friday
feeling, well, like a typical pole vaulter.
After improving 15 inches in a month last year, Stone hadn't come within two inches of matching her Empire record of
12 feet in the first two months of her senior season.
“I think to improve so quickly like I did last year is really rare,” said Stone, who has a 4.42 GPA and plans to major
in biology at UC Davis. “I'm not used to going the same height over and over, but that's what happens. It's a very
hard sport.”
No doubt. But Stone was back to making it look easy Friday as she cleared 12-0 and narrowly missed her third attempt
at 12-3.
Stone's performance — she broke her own meet record of 11-1 — was one of the highlights of a meet which finished with
an exclamation point when Santa Rosa senior Reesey Byers held off Piner's hard-charging sophomore Luis Luna to win the
3,200 meters.
Byers, the Empire record-holder in the event, was shoulder-to-shoulder with Luna with about 200 yards remaining when
he dug deep for what he figured would be a see-ya-later finishing kick. Instead, he discovered Luna was still glued to
his shoulder.
“I heard his coach screaming at him and I looked over my shoulder and he was still right there,” Byers said. “That's
when I kicked again. I knew I had to put it in hyperdrive.”
Byers, who also won the 800 meters in 1:57.95 about 30 minutes before the 3,200, was named the boys' athlete of the
meet for his efforts after finally putting away Luna and winning in 9:18.00. Luna, who finished in 9:18.64, dropped
his personal-best time by 10 seconds and set an Empire sophomore record.
Maria Carrillo senior Lauren Curtin was named the girls' athlete of the meet after finishing an exhausting evening by
leading the Pumas to victory in the 4x400 relay. Curtin also won the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 to win the athlete-of-the-meet
award for the second straight year.
“It's a little exhausting,” Curtin said. “It kind of felt like I might pull something during (the 4x400), but I actually
felt strong.”
Maria Carrillo (232 points) won the girls' title for the seventh straight year and Santa Rosa (129) finished second.
Maria Carrillo and Santa Rosa tied for the boys' team title with 130 points. It was the seventh time in the past eight
years that Santa Rosa had won at least a share of the title.