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By Jim Crowhurst Recently I found some women's steeplechase records from our area that I did not know about and wrote about here. From what I know this area has not put any real effort into being a producer of good steeplers. Yet we have produced not one but two National High School records. One is still the current record. Too get into this subject I thought I would give some background on the non-standard high school events. Those of you who follow high school track know the 16 Any of you who have known me, know I have a passion for stats and records. I got hooked in Junior High, around the time of the Watergate scandal, just to date myself. By the time I was coaching HS track in Santa Rosa in the 80's and 90's I noticed two things I wanted to change. First the Redwood Empire had no meet were the best kids from our area ended up competing head-to-head. The NCS meets at that time were divided up differently than they are now so the chances of the top kids from each league going against each other were rare if they ever happened at all. So in 1989 I started a meet I named the Viking Classic. It was only open to teams from the three Redwood Empire leagues. I really enjoyed my ten years as meet director of the meet that is still going today. Of course times have changed and the meet has also. Second thing I noticed was that the track athletes in this area never had any chances to compete in many of the non-standard events. I would read about kids down in L.A. and other places breaking these national records that our kids never had an opportunity to do. So in 1991 I took on directing two big meets in the same year. The second I named the North Coast Track Extravaganza. This meet had none of the 16 standard events. I had every imaginal relay from the shuttle hurdles to the 4X1 mile relay to all the field events being 3 member teams. The individual events included 5k & 3k races, boys college high hurdles, 400 hurdles, 1500m, college weight throws, the 5 event pentathlon, and of course the 2,000m steeplechase. I was able to put on both those meets during the same seasons for 3 or 4 years, then I had my first child and needed to cut back to just the Viking meet. But in those few years some great marks were produced including one of our still standing National High School records. 2,000m steeplechase by Steve Guerrini, Santa Rosa HS on 4/27/91 at 5:43.9, thats a 4:35.1 1600m pace, for 5 laps, over the solid barriers. It broke the old National mark by 3.1 seconds He also ran the 400IH in the same meet at 56.9Guerrini is one of my Redwood Empires Greatest High School Male Track and Cross Country Athletes and you can see some more on him by clicking on this line. Other Empire records that still stand to this day from the NCTE meets are Boys 800m Sprint Medley (100,100,200,400) 1:36.4 Santa Rosa 1991, this year Maria Carrillo almost broke that at 1:36.7 2010 High Jump Relay 17-10 Santa Rosa 1992 Chris Bane 6-4, David Adams 5-10, Chris Rathbun 5-8, 2nd in the meet was 17-8 by Lower Lake Girls Pentathlon Pam Karbowski, Ursuline 1992 100LH 15.2, LJ 17-1½, SP 27-8¼, HJ 5-2, 800 2:39.5, 3112 pts Discus Throw Relay 310-2 Petaluma 1991 Keri Allen 110-2, Cathy Ricci 106-5, Jennifer Allen 93-7 1600m Sprint Medley (200,200,400,800) 4:13.06* Santa Rosa 1992 Anke Kneifel, Kellie Baralt, Rhonda Mazza 60.6*, Nika Horn 2:19.3* Other notable girls marks produced 1,500m 4:45.4 Kerri Woolheater, Casa Grande 1992 800m Sprint Medley (100,100,200,400) 1:50.2 Santa Rosa 1992 4 x 220yd Relay 1:46.9 Santa Rosa 1992 The other National High School record from the Redwood Empire came from Maria Carrillo's Jenny Aldridge in 2002. Jenny the daughter of Dan Aldridge was the 2000 State 1600m champ at 4:49.63 as a sophomore. On June 22 of 2002 Aldridge broke the 3,000m Steeple HS record at Stanford. See photos of race here.
Aldridge's record last until another NCS runner Lindsay Allen, College Park ran 10:40.42 in 2004 Jenny also holds the Redwood Empires 2,000m Steeple record at 7:19.8 All-in-all our steeple marks are pretty impressive for such a small area and the fact that no one from this area is actively trying to turn out national class steeplers.
Other Relay Records not mentioned
Other Non-standard Event Records not mentioned
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