DyeStatCalElite Performance Cutoffs (Boys/Girls)
Based on Top 100 marks in 'common' events and Top 50 marks in 'uncommon' event from 2006 season.
100m	200m	400m	800m	1500m	1600m	3000m	3200m
11.08/12.60	22.37/25.70	50.03/58.40	1:58.22/2:20.00	4:05.5/4:52.00	4:23.67/5:12.00	9:00/10:40	9:38.23/11:25.00
110/100m HH	300m IH/LH	4x100	4x200	4x400	4x800	4x1600	Shuttle Hurd
15.33/15.90	40.24/47.00	43.34/50.00	1:32.64/1:48.00	3:27.20/4:06.00	8:22.31/10:10.00	18:53/23:00	1:10.00/1:10.00
Sprint Med	Distance Medl	High Jump	Pole Vault	Long Jump	Triple Jump	Shot Put	Discus Throw
3:45.00/4:30.00	10:54.60/13:10.00	6-3.00/5-2.0	13-6.00/10-2.00	21-8.25/17-0.00	43-9.25/35-6.00	50-10/36-6	153-11/118-00

2007 Outdoor Track & Field Is Officially Here!

By Rich Gonzalez - Editor, DyeStatCal.
        (TRACKVILLE) -- We're out of the gates quickly in 2007!
        Headlined by some great performances from the traditionally powerful Mt. Pleasant Relays meet in San Jose, athletes from up and down the state laced on the spikes or other specialty shoes to run, jump and hurl themselves into the brand new season. It was a very busy week too, with 31 invitationals known to have taken place inside state lines.
Here are some quick leading highlights from five particular meets that caught our eye for varying reasons:
        The Mt. Pleasant Relays (Central Coast Section) were the week's main attraction for obvious reason as a few of the state's -- and nation's -- best programs were on display. Despite the calendar reading early March, one could swear these teams were already in championship form as JW North of Riverside (Southern Section) threw down the weekend's most impressive performance with a blazing 3:16.24 winning effort in the 4x400-meter relay!

Vashti Thomas
       Other outstanding marks from the meet included Vashti Thomas of host Mt. Pleasant stretching to a lifetime-best    40-00.00 (wind = +0.3 mps) and Logan's Briana Stewart spanning 39-09.50 (+2.3) in the triple jump and Logan's 1-2-3-4 sweep in the men's triple jump, with the quartet averaging 45-1/ 3/8"! All told, there were a state-leading 42    DyeStatCal Elite marks achieved at the meet, which saw James Logan of the North Coast Section sweep the team titles.
       Another great mark fell by the wayside in the women's 4x100-meter relay as the meet starter apparently assigned leadoff runners to the wrong stagger line, adding an estimated 13 meters to Mt. Pleasant's official 48.28 clocking. Had they run the actual 400-meter relay distance at the same rate, that time probably would have been closer to a high 46-second performance!
       The longstanding Foothill Invitational (Southern Section) emerged as a sensational affair thanks to an apparent upgrade in organizational efficiency according to some coaches present this year. New Citrus College coach Nicki Shaw altered the meet schedule just a tad and the athletes seemed to respond well under nice weather conditions to post 32 DyeStatCal Elite marks, second-best of the weekend.
       In past years, we were fortunate to get our hands on leading results, but the timeliness of such was lacking at times. By Sunday, a list of top performances was at our disposal, accentuating some great marks from Long Beach Wilson's girls programs and the boys squad from Rancho Cucamonga. Perhaps the race of the day occurred in the girls' 100-meter dash, where Rancho Cucamonga's Brianna Atkins just edged out Wilson's Shelise Williams, 12.03 to 12.04.
       If we can make one suggestion to the Citrus College crew, please try securing a wind gauge for next year's meet, as fine performances such as these deserved to be classified in the wind legal category if, in fact, the skies were calm. Reports from the scene varied, as light winds were said to have been on the fringe of being wind-aided according to some accounts.
       The Sanger Classic (Central Section) was a very pleasant surprise to us as 21 DyeStatCal Elite marks emerged from the low-profile meet. We say "low profile" because most meets in the Central Section don't do automated timing and it is often several days (sometimes weeks) before results from that neck of the woods ever sees the light of day.
       Among the big highlights here were state-leading boys marks in the 400m, 800m and 3200. Reedley's Remington Blair did the one-lap honors, ripping to a meet record 48.93; Clovis' Jonathan Peterson established a meet record to win the two-lap race in 1:56.96; Clovis' Mikel Thomas also broke a meet record, winning the eight-lapper in 9:16.30.
       Super thanks to Central Section track and field guru Ron Blackwood for securing us those marks in quick fashion!
       The Don Green Invitational (Southern Section) was a "crazy-busy" affair at Moorpark HS. How else to describe a meet that had (insert drumroll here...) 174 finishers in the girls frosh-soph 100-meter dash alone! The timing crew and officials surely came through under challenging circumstances here, with the athletes coming up big as well. A total of 16 DyeStatCal Elite marks (5th in the state this weekend) were racked up in the meet!
       The De La Salle/Carondelet Joe Stocking Invitational (North Coast Section) showcased the best lower-level showing in the state as Carondelet frosh Nicole Hood was "lights out" impressive in the girls' 3,000-meter run, the European equivalent to the bastardized 3,200-meter offshoot American distance. Hood won by 59 seconds in the 7-1/2 lap race at Joe Stocking in a time of 10:07.8, which converts to roughly 10:57 for 3200 meters. Casa Grande's Jacque Taylor is the current 3200m state leader, posting an 11:08.9 performance at the Big Cat Invitational in Santa Rosa.
       Here are last weekend's top-ranked meets in terms of DyeStatCal Elite performance marks:

"Top 10" Meets for DyeStatCal Elite Marks (Week #2)
Mt. Pleasant Relays = 48
Foothill Invitational = 32
Sanger Classic = 21
DeLaSalle/Carondelet Joe Stocking Meet = 20
Don Green Invitational = 16
Earl Engman Relays = 15
Clarke Massey Relays = 14
Eagle Invite = 12
Skyline Invitational = 12
Sacramento State Relays = 11

Two-time defending state champion sidelined...
        Royal HS senior Michael Cybulski has recently been diagnosed with a stress fracture that will require him to avoid running for at least a month. According to Cybulski, who had planned to run the mile at this weekend's Nike Indoor Nationals meet in Maryland, the stress fracture occurred just above one hip.
        Cybulski aims in June to become the first male athlete in California history to win three state 3200-meter crowns when the year-end meet returns to Sacramento on June 1-2.

Michael Cybulski
        On a related note, Cybulski was the most popular pick on the inaugural DyeStatCal Fantasy League contest that is now underway. As with any Fantasy League contest, all injuries, slumps, the unforeseen, etc. are "part of the game", as they say.
        But don't be too worried. As Michael has shown in the past, he's capable of scoring in big bunches down the road. There's good chance he'll be out competing again before most other athletes score major points as most athletes don't project to start scoring well until Stanford or Arcadia, or even later.

On the topic of the Fantasy League...
        Close to 150 legal entries were submitted for the inaugural DyeStatCal Fantasy League contest that is being sponsored by Champions Camp, a summertime cross-country camp in Mammoth. Initially, we expected an even greater response, but it appears (after an informal polling of a few youngsters) that some thought the contest might be too complex.
        For those who did enter on time, this contest will be a snap. You've already done the hard part: investing your time to shrewdly make prognostications as to which combination of seven athletes will fare best once the season ends. Now it's up to Champions Camp, the EPI Sports results database and DyeStatCal to compute everyone's scores, with standings being posted at the Champions Camp website every other week starting next week!
       Also, Champions Camp has shared that it might create an opportunity for contestants to "draft" one additional runner or perhaps make a "trade" for a new runner at some point late in the season (before postseason), much like how conventional fantasy leagues operate. Stay tuned for more details on that.
       As we hope everyone will see, this contest is both easy and fun. Plans are being discussed for future Fantasy League contests down the road.

The Power of EPI!...
       As many of you may have noticed, the results for most invitationals posted on DyeStatCal so far this young season are appearing in a new format. Not only is the new layout cleaner, but those results are automatically processed via the EPI Sports database, which means we'll have data that is very easy to sort through in the weeks to come.
      What's that mean to you? Automated databases that sort best marks by gender, by CIF section, by grade, by meet, etc. Our "Best Marks" pages are always our most popular targets for track and field season, and now they'll have more information than ever before!
      Thanks to Nate Fox and Jim Roldan of EPI Sports for introducing to us their new concept on DyeStatCal, a plus which will help reshape excitement/performance levels to even greater heights in California as athletes strive to perform even better to appear on these popular lists!
      All meet directors are encouraged to submit their results either in the HyTek format specified or by using the Excel spreadsheet linked on the top of the mainpage. Either of these two formats will ensure prompt inclusion into the EPI Sports database.

Going The Distance... And Then Some!...
      Congratulations (and a well deserved therapeutic massage or two) are in order for Ayala High's Grace Gonzalez and King High assistant coach Amanda Chann, who both finished the 22nd annual Los Angeles Marathon over the weekend in remarkable times.

Grace Gonzalez
      Gonzalez, who is 17, placed 14th OVERALL among the 7,831 female finishers in the 26.2-mile endurance challenge. Her official chip time (from start line to finish line) of 3 hours, 16 minutes and 7 seconds placed her first in the 16-19 age category, as she averaged 7:29 per mile for the full distance! To boot, she was the 9th-fastest female American! Perhaps equally amazing, she finished 210th out of over 20,000 co-ed runners, ranking in the top 1%. WOW!!!
      Chann, who is an assistant coach in both cross-country and track and field, placed 34th overall and 27th among female Americans with an excellent chip time of 3:24.41! Chann, 33, averaged just over 7:48 per mile! She also finished seventh among females in the 30-34 age category, including fifth among American females! Chann placed 346th overall (combined genders) to place among the top 2% in the entire L.A. Marathon field!
      Awesome job, ladies!

Will She Be Going The Distance?....
      At last check, Mission Prep sophomore Jordan Hasay was destined for Kenya to represent Team USA at the IAAF World Cross-Country Championships late this month. However, continued political developments overseas and recent warnings from the U.S. Embassy over indications of a possible 'terrorist' atta