Yuma boys run away with region; Kofa wins squeaker

 No matter if it came from a first or fifth-place finish, every last point appeared like it would be a critical one for the Kofa and Gila Ridge girls track teams.

 And while the Hawks pulled in second-place finishes in the final three events, they lost to the Kings in two of those races.

 Meanwhile, the Yuma boys were not only putting up the majority of the top times and marks, they were the ones snaring a good portion of the second and third-place points as well.

 The Criminal boys collected 149 points and ran away with the Gila Valley Region Track and Field Championship on Friday at Raider Field, while the Kofa girls gave their head coach one last title and edged out Gila Ridge 109-99. Both title-winning teams finished second a year ago at the region championships.

 "We looked at it and thought 100-110 points would be okay and it may come down to those last 10 points," said Kofa coach Charlie Splawn, who is retiring from coaching this year. "We did this with basically 13 girls and a lot of them had to run four heats today. Everybody had to run their best, and they did."

 Led by Stephanie Ledgerwood's sweep of the 800 and 1,600-meter runs to go with her win in the 3,200 on Wednesday, the Lady Kings also got a pair of first and second-place times from Amanda Garcia in the hurdle events and sprint relays and three top-threes from Paige Perry and Jenna McKenna.

 "We were pretty confident about it," said Garcia, who had to overcome losing her first race of the day by .05 seconds. "A few races we knew we needed to make up, but we did pretty good overall."

 Kofa's other win came from Amanda Nieves in the shot put, giving them five on Friday compared to just two from Gila Ridge, who won the 100-meter hurdles (Sophia Cole) and the 400 relay.

 "Gila Ridge is very good and they'll be back next year and be very tough," Splawn said. "But the thing is we had a gut check today, and we did it."

 Host team Cibola was third on the girls side thanks to Dezarae Rodriguez's win in the long jump and a remarkable performance from Nicolette Monroe, who won the 100, 200 and 400-meter dashes.

 The Yuma boys showed off their depth in a number of areas, especially the jumping and sprinting events. The Criminals took the top-three spots in the high jump (Deante Gaines, Andrew Herarte, Quincy Young) and the triple jump (JC Baker, Young, Lawerence Odum),  won the 100 (Baker), 300 hurdles (Daryl Byrum) and went 1-2 in the 400 (Cesar Villegas and Juan Chavez).

 "It's kind of like surfing, and they caught that wave at the right time,"  Yuma coach Curt Weber said. "Most people don't realize we were without (jumper) Steven Rojano today because of a swimming pool accident. Mauricio Town, our best hurdler, is out with a possible torn ACL, and Gabe Torregrosa (distance runner) was in the hospital for three days with strep throat and tonsillitis infection so to miss those kind of performances and run up the points they did speaks to the depth."

 Torregrosa was able to run on the winning 3,200 team and replaced Rojano on the third-place 1,600 relay, a race that changed leads three times before going to Cibola. The Criminals also won the 400 largely thanks to Anthony Jackson, who replaced Town as the third leg of the relay.

 "That's as fast a 4x100 team as I've ever had," Weber said. "They get a quality workout because they're competing against some pretty good people every day, and it's a good combination of youth and seniors, so that group of sprinters will be here for a while."

 Cibola was second in the boys competition riding wins from Joshua Lopez in the 3,200 and Frank Fassetta in the discus. Kofa was a close third behind Lex Black's 110 hurdles win.

 Tyler Cerka gave the Hawks a male champion in the 200. He also gave JC Baker (10.80) a run for his money in the 100, losing by .05.

 Complete results will be posted in Sunday's stats and facts page.