Redwoods men win first conference title in more than 3 decades
The College of the Redwoods men's track and field team clinched the Golden Valley Conference title at Yuba College in Marysville this past weekend.
Seven-year Redwoods cross-country and track head coach Reed Elmore said it's the first conference title the Corsairs have won in recent memory.
Redwoods athletic director Joe Hash said a pair of conference titles sit in the trophy room on campus from the '70s.
But the 2016 season has set several milestones atop the team's long-awaited resurgence.
"We hadn't had the coaching staff in the past and about a year ago I went to the football office and said we needed to work together and they agreed," Elmore said. "We knew we had talent but it was a group effort, all around, with the kids and coaching staff as well."
A strong relay team consisting of freshmen Davion Curry, Cherrard Cohen, Oscar Carson and sophomore Riccardo Cicciarella netted first place in the 4X400 relay and broke Redwood's all-time record for the event in Oregon on March 22 with a time of 3:21.64.
Cohen, who has battled injury since closing out his season on the football team, also nabbed first in the 400-meter dash with a time of 49.4 seconds.
A team of Curry, Cicciarella, freshman Andrew Wilson and sophomore Theron Anderson came up third in the 4X100 relay, tying the school record at 42.63 at the East Bay Invite in Hayward last month.
Wilson took second place in the 200-meter dash, also breaking Redwoods' all-time record at 21.24 seconds earning him a standard for state championships and a No. 4 ranking in Northern California.
Wilson also set his PR for the 400-meter at the East Bay Invite at 48.89, to break two Corsairs' all-time records on the year.
Freshman Brando Haven won the 3000-meter steeplechase by more than two minutes, clocking in at 10:52.65 in the event while sophomore teammate Joseph Esparza won the 5000-meter with a time of 18:35.79.
"Our times were starting to drop, our marks were starting to improve, weekly. Somebody at some event was pretty much PRing every week," assistant coach Damaro Wheeler said. "I brought it to everyone's attention and you saw the focus change. The funny thing is that everybody played a part. Some guys unselfishly sacrificed their favorite events for others in order to score us points. They all scored in every event that we were in."