A one-lap tour of the track provided a pair of impressive performances Friday at the Escondido Invitational.
San Pasqual High School senior Nadia Miechowicz and Poway High School freshman Keith Buswell each won their respective 400-meter races, but in much different manners. Miechowicz led her race from the blocks to the tape and won convincingly with a time of 58.08 seconds.
Buswell, on the other hand, was in fourth place going into the final turn of his heat for the boys 400 but made up the difference, ing three runners to take the win in 51.03.
“I’ve been trying to get myself to run faster on my own, because sometimes I don’t have strong competition,” said Miechowicz, who came into Friday’s meet at Wilson Stadium with the 10th-best girls 400 time in the section this season of 58.14 and bettered that. “It’s been an inside battle.”
Miechowicz has been running the 400 since her freshman year and has a personal best of 57.22 set last year at the CIF Division 2 finals.
“I’m happy with the 400 because it can help you build for other events like the 200,” she said. “I’m still training hard, but I need to be letting it loose a little bit as we get closer to CIF.”
The CIF divisional championships are scheduled for May 17, and the sectional finals are May 24.
Buswell, the younger brother of 2024 girls 800 state champion Tessa Buswell, said he was happy to survive a fast pace in his race.
“I wasn’t ready for it to go out so fast,” itted Buswell, whose sister now competes for BYU. “I was hugging the curb with 150 to go and was able to those guys.”
Despite being just a freshman, Buswell is in his third year of competitive running.
“I started running club in seventh grade,” he said. “Maybe my nerves are a little better because of my experience. I really want to get into the 49s and I feel confident I can do that, but it means getting out quick and holding it.”
San Pasqual had another impressive middle-distance performance in the girls 800 meters, where senior Addison Paladino, ranked sixth in the section, ran away from the pack in 2:15.14, good for a winning margin of more than seven seconds and less than three seconds off the meet-record time of 2:12.72.
The sprint races featured one of the section’s top speedsters in the boys 100, where West Hills senior Cameron Bishop ran 10.96 to eclipse the field. Bishop has a season-best of 10.81, the fifth-fastest 100 time in the section this year.
The boys hurdle races featured a double winner in El Capitan junior Spencer Chastang, who outclassed the field in the 110-meter race with a time of 15.05 before adding another victory in the 300 hurdles with a winning time of 39.29. Chastang’s season-best of 38.8 is currently the fifth-best 300 time in the section.
The boys long jump produced one of the top 10 marks this season when Rancho Buena Vista senior Jacob Sheridan won the event at 22 feet, 1 inch. Sheridan currently has the third-best leap in the section this season at 22-8½.
A close finish in the first individual running event got the meet off to a riveting start when Sonya Nichols of host Escondido High ran a personal best to hold off Point Loma’s Sara Geiszler by less than a second, 5:18.18 to 5:18.78, in a girls 1,600-meter duel of juniors.
