Shamrocks gain nothing from track meet at VC

The Yuma Catholic track team’s trip to a last-chance qualifier at Chandler-Valley Christian turned out to be nothing more than a glorified practice on Saturday.

The timing system’s finish line camera malfunctioned before competition, meaning the results could not be used to qualify for next week’s AIA state meet. Yuma Catholic coach Ralph Farr said the trip amounted to nothing but a waste of money for the teams involved.

"We had to pay an entry fee — which I hope we get back — and we had to pay the money to drive out here all for nothing," Farr said. "Schools came from all around to have their kids reach their qualifying marks for state and it is sad for the meet to have ended before it began."

After the AIA did away with regional meets this year, which allowed competitors to qualify for state, athletes had to reach state qualifying marks at meets that had an official timing system. Not all meets featured the official timing systems, giving added importance to the meets that did have the systems.

Yuma Catholic’s Paul Corona won the pole vault and Sean Peters won the 800-meter run, but both had already qualified for state. Even without additional state qualifiers from Saturday’s meet, Farr said he expects to bring about a dozen athletes from both his boys and girls squads to the state meet that starts Friday at Mesa Community College.

Farr said he won’t know for sure on the numbers until Monday when all schools have finished reporting competitors’ qualifying marks.