But for Rodrick Pleasant, they stood before the gun even popped.
Half the stands were already out of their seats, a mass of kids along the upper concourse with their phones trained on the starting marks for the boys’ 100-meter dash. The last preps dose they’d ever get of the Gardena Serra Superman’s 100 dance with history.
(Nick Koza)
All eyes have been on Pleasant for months, his senior season becoming a race against himself after his renowned 10.14 state record at the Masters Meet his junior year. Expectations loomed Saturday at state, and his hamstring nagged, as Serra coach Christopher Mack said Pleasant was trying to work through tightness around the back of his knee.
In another loaded field, Pleasant could’ve folded. Instead, he dashed to a state-meet record time of 10.20 seconds.
And an hour later, he crossed the finish line ahead of a tough 200 field in 20.67 seconds, his second gold medal of the day, and a fist thrown to the heavens like John Bender in the final shot of “The Breakfast Club.”
“Just soak it up,” Pleasant said of his mentality after the 100. “It’s been different … but just finish it, have fun, enjoy it. I’m never going to get this time again.”
After finishing behind Pleasant at 20.95 seconds in the 200, Granada Hills’ Dijon Stanley wrapped his arm around Pleasant’s shoulders in exhausted camaraderie, a shining moment for two of the best athletes the Los Angeles area has produced in recent years.
Dijon Stanley of Granada Hills wins the boys’ 400 meters with a career-best time of 45.19 seconds. Xai Ricks of Long Beach Poly, left, was second and Jaden Rattay of Lincoln, right, was third.
(Nick Koza)
Stanley took his speed to new heights as a senior after a dominant football season, beating his own state-leading time to take the 400 gold medal Saturday in 45.75 seconds.
“Just coming out this year, I was like, ‘I’ma just leave it all out there, it’s my last year,’” Stanley said. “I have nothing to lose.”
He helped ensure City Section dominance in front of the state crowd, clinching the boys’ team title for Granada Hills with an anchor-leg push to a third-place finish in the 4X400 relay — the first City program to win a boys’ team title since Dorsey in 2005.
Equally as impressive was Ventura High superstar sophomore Sadie Engelhardt, who ho-hummed her way to a barely qualifying time of 4:50:64 in Friday’s girls’ 1,600-meter prelims before pressing the gas en route to a meet record 4:33.45 in the finals. That may not even have been her biggest achievement — she knocked off Riverside J.W. North state-leader Mackenzie Browne in the 800 meters with a final push to a winning time of 2:07:22.
Ventura sophomore Sadie Engelhardt wins the state title in the girls’ 1,600 meters.
(Nick Koza)
“I love to go to the races that have the most competition,” Engelhardt said in late April.
Other standouts
Long Beach Wilson’s Aujane Luckey and Kaylin Edwards helped a standout girls’ program to a team title with respective wins in the 400 and 300 hurdles. Luckey won the 400 in 43.26 and Edwards took the 300 hurdles crown in 41.57.
Upland’s Davis Davis-Lyric continued his dominance of the boys’ 110 hurdles, but tripped on a hurdle in the 300 and was disqualified as Jordan’s Darryll Stevens eked out a win with a 37.44.
Oaks Christian junior Niya Clayton continued a national-level emergence with a winning time of 11.45 in the girls’ 100 , as defending state champion Reign Redmond faltered with an injury and was unable to finish. Culver City sophomore Joelle Trepagnier surprised even herself with a late kick in the 200 to push past Serra reigning-champ Brazil Neal and finish in 23.62.
“I wasn’t expecting it,” Trepagnier smiled after the race.
Corona Santiago’s top distance runner, Rylee Blade, won the girls’ 3,200 by a hair in front of Oaks Christian’s Payton Godsey, with a time of 10:02:19 to 10:02:63. Highland’s Matthew Donis defied a fifth-place seed time to win the boys’ 3,200 in a blazing 8:51:37.
In the field events, JSerra’s Brendon See won the discus with a throw of 196 feet, 4 inches and the shot put with a mark of 62 feet, 9.5 inches. Castaic’s Meagan Humphries, a track Swiss Army knife, didn’t win any individual field event but earned four medals — fourth in the high jump, second in the long jump, second in the triple jump and fifth in the 200 meters.