Sports
Beaumont Track Scores Well At Flying Tiger Invitational
Wood wins the discus, Ritchie wins the shot put.
As far as it was concerned, Beaumont High’s track season came and went with last week’s win over San Jacinto.
The Cougars defeated their rivals in the boys' and girls' meets and landed on a clear road to a Mountain Pass League title.
That success extended to another good day -- though not a complete winner -- Saturday, when Beaumont made the trip to San Jacinto for the 30-team Flying Tiger Invitational.
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Beaumont placed second in the girls' meet with 76 points. Cajon (102) won top honors. Beaumont finished third in the boys' meet with 69 ½ points. The host Tigers won the boys' meet with 121 points and runner-up Indio finished with 78 points.
“Usually we go to invitationals to run against better kids, which means we have to step up our game,” Beaumont coach Jessica Cadman said. “It’s a good opportunity to win a medal and have a good time.”
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It was a particularly good day for Beaumont’s team of throwers.
Caleb Wood won the discus in the boys' meet and Lindsey Ritchie won the shot put event in the girls' meet.
Also, Andrew Walker won top honors in the high jump.
Beaumont athletes, however, will relish their win over San Jacinto for the rest of the season.
For the boys meet, however, it was a near defeat.
Beaumont left the field that day believing it had lost. A mistake in the scoring was discovered the following day.
“The meet against San Jacinto, we left and thought we had lost,” Cadman said. “They scored the meet wrong; then we fought out we actually won it.”
Cadman said the girls team locked up the league title with that win. But the boys’ team will likely have to settle for a share of the league title after being upset by Hemet, losing that meet by one point. Beaumont was without a key athlete that would have provided the deciding points. Instead, the meet went to the final event where the Cougars lost in the 4x1 relay by three one-hundredths of a second.
“Now we are best friends with San Jacinto,” Cadman said. “We hope San Jacinto beats Hemet.”
The league title will be split three ways (Beaumont, San Jacinto and Hemet) if San Jacinto defeats Hemet.
“It is a little disappointing,” Cadman said. “That’s the way it goes.”
Beaumont completes the regular season against Tahquitz and West Valley in the next two weeks. The league finals and CIF follow after that.
