On May 18, these three sprinters qualified for state in the 100-meter dash. From left: Coronado's Lauren Gilhooly (2nd place), Amirah Shaheed (1st place) and Joelle Frazier (3rd place). Photo courtesy of Phil Grooms.

After a second place finish in the 100-meter dash at the CIF San Diego Section Championships on May 18, in which six Coronado High School athletes qualified to compete in, junior Lauren Gilhooly advanced to the California Track and Field Championship preliminary rounds on May 24. 

According to coach George Green, it is extremely difficult to qualify for the state meet due to California’s population. Only 27 athletes per individual event qualify and the last Islander athletes to do so were Alysah Hickey and Teresa Perez in 2019.

Although Gilhooly’s 100-meter dash time was shy of qualifying for the final round of state by 0.32 seconds, she finished the season with the 14th best time in the state out of thousands of personal records recorded by Athletic.net, according to Green. 

Her standout season performance, including setting new school records in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, granted her the title of Most Valued Player (MVP) for the season, which was celebrated at the team’s banquet. 

Nathan Ayan was named the MVP for the boys, and he was one of the six Coronado athletes to compete in the section championships along with Gilhooly. 

The  Islanders who qualified for the May 18 meet were sophomore Summer Little in the girl’s 4×100-meter relay, sophomore Nathan Ayan in the boy’s 800-meter dash,  Gilhooly in the girl’s 100-meter, 200-meter dash and 4×100-meter relay, senior Rafael Roos in the boys 800-meter, senior Lindsey Balsley in the girls long jump and senior Tatiana Potter  in the girl’s 4×100-meter relay. 

Coronado’s athletes combined for medals in five events, with Gilhooly leading the way with second and fifth place finishes in the 100-meter and 200-meter events, respectively. Although she was hamstrung by illness the week leading into this event, she was still able to qualify for the state meet in the 100-meter. 

On top of the impressive performance by Gilhooly at the section championships, Balsley medaled with an eighth place finish in the long jump with a leap of 17’2’’—this being her fourth year at the CIF finals. 

Roos and Ayan both represented Coronado at the CIF finals for the second time. Ayan finished eighth in the 800-meter, earning a medal and a personal record. Roos placed 13th in the same race. Both Roos and Ayan finished the year as City League leaders in the 800-meter run.

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Cade Cavin is a part-time reporter for The Coronado News. He was born in Poway, CA, but has lived in Escondido, CA, Basking Ridge, NJ, Durham, England, and Santa Clarita, CA. He will primarily be covering sports across Coronado and San Diego, but occasionally may work on other beats. He is currently in his second semester of his junior year at Point Loma Nazarene University with a double major in Business Administration and Multimedia Journalism with a focus in writing. As of right now, he is planning on taking the LSAT this summer with the goal of attending law school after undergrad. A fun fact about him is that he's been to 36 states and 12 countries.