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The supermen of the JSerra track and field program lifted the Lions to state glory on Saturday, May 27, at Buchanan High School in Clovis.
Brendon See showcased his locomotive power with a double state title performance in the discus throw and shot put, and Jake Stafford leapt to unforeseen heights with a state title in the high jump, as the pair single-handedly led JSerra to the boys state runner-up trophy at the CIF State Championships.
See captured his second consecutive state championship in the discus throw with two of his best tosses of the season. The Oklahoma-bound senior tossed a season-record of 199 feet, 9 inches in the preliminary round on Friday, and in the finals, See hurled his third-best throw of the season at 196 feet, 4 inches to win the state title.
See’s personal record in the discus came at last season’s CIF State Championships with a mark of 203 feet, 10 inches. This season, See also won titles at the Orange County Championships and Trinity League Finals, but he finished second at the CIF-SS Division 3 Finals and the CIF-SS Masters Meet.
See later pushed out his third-best shot put throw of the season with a mark of 62 feet, 9 ½ inches to claim his first state championship in the event. See won shot put titles at every major meet this season, including the Orange County Championships, Trinity League Finals, CIF-SS Division 3 Finals and CIF-SS Masters.
Stafford nearly matched his personal best with a 6-foot, 7-inch clearance to win the state championship in the high jump. The UCLA-bound senior posted a mark of 6 feet, 5 inches in the preliminary round on Friday. Stafford’s best mark this season came at the CIF-SS Division 3 Finals, where he won the CIF-SS title with a clearance of 6 feet, 8 inches.
Stafford also made the podium behind See in the discus throw, with a sixth-place mark of 182 feet, 2 inches. Stafford’s toss was just off his personal-record mark for the Orange County Championships at 183 feet, 3 inches.
With three wins from See and Stafford and another Stafford podium alone, JSerra posted a team score of 33 points, just three points off of the team state champions Granada Hills Charter of the Los Angeles City Section.
Senior Josh Jornadal also competed at the state meet, but he did not advance out of the preliminary round in the long jump with a 16th-place finish at 22 feet, 6 inches. Jornadal missed qualifying for the finals by 1 ½ inches.
On the girls side, JSerra had two podium finishers from its CIF-SS Division 3 championship squad.
The Lions were a part of history in the 4×800-meter relay, as the event was run for the first time at the CIF State Championships. The JSerra foursome of Amerie Johnson, Kaylah Tasser, Brooke O’Brien and Anastasia Snodgrass posted a time of 9:01.10, their best of the season, to finish second in the event’s inaugural run.
The 4×800-meter relay is the first addition to the CIF State program since girls pole vault in 1995.
In the individual 800-meter run, junior Georgia Jeanneret pushed her way onto the podium with a fourth-place finish at 2:09.84, just off her personal-record pace of 2:09.55 from this season’s Arcadia Invitational. Jeanneret posted a time of 2:10.82 in the preliminary round. Jeanneret won the Trinity League and CIF-SS Division 3 titles in the event this season.
In the girls discus throw, Texas State-bound senior Siena Lambert finished just off the podium with a 10th-place mark of 128 feet, 9 inches. Lambert finished just two inches behind ninth, which is the final points spot on the CIF State podium. Lambert qualified for the state meet with a personal-record throw of 147 feet, 3 inches at the CIF-SS Masters meet.