Greene, relay team qualify for state track meet

For the first time since COVID, Vista del Lago's track and field team has athletes who qualified for the CIF State Track and Field championships. The boys' 4x100-meter relay team, peaking at exactly the right time of the season, won the Sac-Joaquin Section Masters competition with a time of 41.54 second finishing .23 in front of second-place Inderkum. The team of Jushan Kalkat, Will Greene, Jahaan Kalkat and Collin Lund has run together all season, posting a season-best time of 41.43 at the Stanford Invitational. The team was confident heading into the race, despite anchorman Lund suffering from a sprained ankle. "I knew it would be a challenge because I wasn't 100 percent," Lund said. "I had to do crazy rehab on my ankle. I taped my ankle, put a brace on it and fought through it for my boys." As for the pain of running on a sore ankle, which Lund estimated to be at 70 percent healthy, he replied, "That's what Advil is for." Jahaan Kalkat was happy to take first. "I was excited and happy," Jahaan said. 'We really focused on our handoffs during practice. I knew what we were capable of and we went out and did it. I was confident and felt like we had a good chance." Sure, the team wanted to win, but it wasn't the medals they were interested in, but the cap they received from the section. Both Lund and Jushan said they wanted the cap. "Winning was definitely a goal of ours and it feels great to achieve it," Jushan said. "And I always wanted the section championship hat." The Kalkat's and Lund ran together on last year's team with Matt Long. This year, Vista track coach Mike Kozlowski simply replaced a fast Long with a faster Greene. "I knew we'd have a solid season," Lund said. "We just replaced Matt with a faster guy and Will was great. Once we went to Stanford and won it, it gave us the confidence boost we needed to do great things." Greene said the team worked well together. "Jushan is great out of the box and is really explosive and is good at catching people off the curve," Greene said. "I'm good on the backside, and then we've got Jahaan who is great at running on the curve. He's always catching people. Then we've got Collin running anchor and he either catches people or always manages to keep us out in front." Unfortunately, the team will not be competing at the state meet, as Vista's graduation will be Friday night and Greene and the Kalkat's , the team's seniors, decided that graduation was more important. "We knew we wouldn't be going to state, so we were just trying the end the season on a good note by winning," Lund said. "I was just thinking about getting that section hat. It's kind of a bummer not to go to state, but …" Said Jahaan, "We had a couple families coming to graduation and we just felt it was mandatory to go to graduation." Greene summed it up this way. "It was a tough decision and has been since my junior year knowing that this year we are going to be fast enough to go to state and that we all collectively have to make a decision, but we had a goal that we wanted to hit which was to get under 41.5 so after hitting that goal at Stanford, we had reached our goal for the season and state would have just been another chance to hit 41.5 so it wasn't really as important to go to." Greene also qualified for the state meet in his two individual events, as Greene won the 400 meters in a meet-record time of 46.62 and also placed second in the 200 in 21.65. "I was glad I won the 400," Greene said. "I either wanted to win it or break 46.99 and I did both. In the 200, I wanted to run a personal-best but with a 2.5 headwind, that probably wasn't going to happen. I'm happy to run second. Cy Lugo (who won the race) is something else so I wasn't too upset." Vista coach Mike Kozlowski was disappointed his athletes had to choose between going to state and going to graduation. "Will is ranked number five in California at 400 meters and is still improving and he's got an extremely bright future," Kozlowski said. "I hate that the state meet is held on graduation weekend. The CIF should move it back two weeks and shorten basketball and football season, or the school district should place graduation a week after school is complete, so that spring sport athletes don't have to decide between family, friends and championships." Vista junior Brenna Mannion came so close to qualifying, as she ran fourth in the 1,600 meters in 4:58.74. Only the top-three made it. "Brenna ran the best race of her season," Kozlowski said. "As this season progressed, she built up some toughness that is going to make her a contender for a top spot at Masters next year. Fourth place is a small disappointment, knowing that only three get bids to state, but her competitors are exceptional and deserve their win. "Brenna can and will run under the automatic qualifying mark next year and will take all variables off the table and get her chance to run in Clovis. You heard it here first."