The school year’s first big invitational track meet took place last Saturday at Santa Rosa High. The Big Cat Invitational is in its 34th year at the school, adjacent to Santa Rosa Junior College. It hosted student-athletes from 27 schools in Northern California from early morning until late in the afternoon on March 7.
Many of the runners were veterans of the school’s 2025 Cross Country team, which made a rare appearance at the State CIF Championships in late November. Katie Guthrie coaches both teams this year.
Notable performances by Healdsburg High athletes included HHS sophomore Teague Jasper who cleared 6 feet, 6 inches in the high jump. That leap broke a decades-old school record of 6 feet, 5.5 inches set in 1963 by Clem Houg.
Jasper also competed in the 200-meter sprint, finishing less than two seconds behind the first-place finisher. And he finished fourth in the varsity long jump, at 19 feet, 7.5 inches. It was a good day for Teague, following on the heels of an NBL-Redwood all-league basketball season.
In the longer distances, the cross country athletes showed up with two finishers in the top 10 in 800 meters: senior Jake McWilliams and freshman Phoenix De Maria Nall in ninth and 10th.
In the boys varsity 1,600 meters, three Greyhounds finished in the top 10: Lucas Welty in seventh, De Maria Nall in ninth and McWilliams in 10th.
In the longest distance in the meet, the 3,200 meter race, sophomore Welty came in second behind the winner, Xavier Surgeon of Windsor. His classmate Domenico Cornilsen came in ninth.
JV athletes Milo Timmsen-Miller and Eli Zepeda Lemus, both on the wrestling team last season, made a good showing in field events, in both shot put and discus. In fact Timmsen-Miller won the JV discus event with a heave of 106 feet, 10.5 inches.
The Greyhound girls’ performance at Big Cat again showed strength in the longer distances. Sophomore Justina Domenichelli came in third in the JV 400 meters at 1:07.27, with junior Olive Munden in sixth at 1:09.86. Junior Lila Kreck also made a good showing in the JV running events.
