Blast from the Past: March 22-28

March 22nd, 1966
Montgomery junior Mel Gray had a big day during a dual at Hogan winning the 100 yard race in 9.6 seconds to break the Redwood Empire record than came back to win the 220 in 21.2.

Mel Gray

March 28th, 1984
In a dual meet verses Healdsburg, Piner’s Aaron Braxton sailed to 22-5 in the long jump at Piner.

March 28th, 1987
At the Stanford Relays Santa Rosa’s Wendi Simmons flew to a huge Empire Record in the triple jump going 38-10, wind aided. No one has ever come within a foot of that mark.

Wendi Simmons

March 25th, 1988
The following year at Stanford 100 meter finals El Molino’s Sharon Polley equaled her own Empire Record running 12.1.

March 24th, 2004
In a dual at Cardinal Newman Sonoma Valley’s Melissa Van Paris broke the Empire record in the discus with a 135-4 toss.

Melissa Van Paris

March 27th, 2004
Three days later teammate Mindi Wiley sailed over 5-10 at the Eagle Classic equaled her own Empire Record in the high jump.

Mindi Wiley

March 28th, 2012
The fastest ever legal 100 meter dash in a dual meet was run by Rancho Cotate’s David Forman at Healdsburg as he clocked 11.13 +0.0.

David Forman

March 28th, 2018
Santa Rosa At the Santa Rosa Twilight meet Panther Kirsten Carter broke the Empire record in the 300 hurdles finishing in 42.68.

Kirsten Carter

March 23rd, 2019
As a freshman American Canyon’s Croix Stewart ran a wind adjusted 10.98 at the Mark Macres Invitational, (11.15 -2.1).

2019 Big Cat 100 meters by Michael Lucid

In this new weekly tidbit column, “Blast from the Past”, I’m going to take a look at some special performances that happened during the week we are on.
Other Blast from the Past stories