The Fountain Hills High School track and field team went to Tucson last Friday, March 17, for the Mario Castro Invitational. The Falcons only took 12 of their 45 athletes over spring break, and five Falcons had a top-10 finish in their event.

Junior Garren Keeler placed sixth and set a new personal record (PR) in the 300m hurdles (47.65). That also counts as the 11th best in school history per The Athletic. He also finished 32nd in the 100m race (12.95).

Fellow junior Caleb Lara placed ninth with a new PR in the 1600m (5:08.85). Lara is now 13th all time in school history for the 1600m.

Senior Tyler-Irvine Violette finished third in the 800m with a new PR (2:06.73). He’s now fifth in school history, and only 1.51 seconds off from the top school record.

“When you’re setting a PR at the beginning of the season, especially being a season veteran like [Irvine-Violette] is, that’s just such a good sign for the rest of the year,” head coach Kevin Clancy said.

Fellow senior Jentezen Behnke got two top-15 finishes. He placed 12th in the high jump (5’2”) and 13th in javelin (107’2”).

Freshman Allison Guerrette also finished third in the 800m (2:40.39) and took 27th in the 200m (30.98). Guerrette set new PRs in both events and now holds the 17th best 800m time in school history.

The only other freshmen present at the Mario Castro invitational was Colby Wright. Wright set a new PR in the 1600m and finished 13th (5:12.16), good enough for 14th best in school history.

Sophomore Sara Dethlefs came in 10th place in the triple jump (27’0.5”), and her new PR tied the 19th best in school history. She placed 23rd in the long jump (11’9.25”) and finished 25th in the 200m with a new PR (30.60).

Boone took 19th in the 200m with a new PR (29.14), and she finished 21st in the 100m with a new PR as well (14.13). This was only Boone’s second official meet, but she now holds the records for the 16th fastest 100m and 12th fastest 200m in school history.

“We’ve got only three girls here, but we’ve got three girls that can all do really well,” Clancy said. “It’s just very small but mighty, I think that’s how we are. That’s Fountain Hills, we’re small but we punch above our weight. It’s cool, and then, you add in Erin, Skye, Eliana, and all of them, and Katie on the javelin to the mix. There’s only 10 or 11 [girls] out there, but all of them are performing really well.”

Senior Space Kingphakorn set a new PR in each event he competed in last week. He finished 34th in the 100m (13.0), 25th in the long jump (16’6.75”), and 14th in the triple jump (32’6”), which is good for 20th best in school history.

Junior Julian Sepulveda competed in the most events and set PRs in all but javelin. He placed 28th in javelin (83’05”), 29th in discus (68’11”), 31st in shot put (26’10.5”) and 39th in the 200m (31.25).

Fellow junior Ayden Nguyen finished 23rd in the 800m (2:36.53) and 36th in javelin (61’4”). Senior Brandon Despain came in 18th place for javelin (98’9”) and set a new PR in shot put with his 18th place finish (32’1.5”).

The Falcons did not place high as a team because they had so many people out of town for spring break, and most the other teams were not on break, according to Clancy. The Falcons will all be back for the 83rd Chandler Rotary T&F Classic this weekend.

The Chandler Classic is one of the biggest races of the year. Clancy hopes to set good baseline times on relays to see how close they are to state qualifications and get his athletes accustomed to big crowds at important meets. The meet will take place next Friday and Saturday, March 24-25, at the Chandler High School track.