Does the Early Golden Hawk Catch ...

My running camp meets at Yokuts Park on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6am and 6pm and today I ran into the Centennial cross country team. The team is in good hands with first time head coach Vondre Armour at the helm.

This is their second coach in two years after the retirement of the only coach Centennial every had. Randy Jones won a boys and girls valley title in cross country in 2007 and then retired from coaching. He now teaches at Golden Valley.

Last year, Monica Morley's dad coach the squad and this year former Driller great Vondre Armour (state 800 champ) is the head coach. It is still weird seeing Vondre in red but after a successful stint as the distance coach for track last season, the Golden Hawks are looking towards the future and hoping to repeat the past.

This morning they all arrived around 7am as my runners were leaving and I decided to hang out for awhile and see what is happening with program. Vondre had over 20 boys and ten plus girls for this early morning workout. He said they have been running at Yokuts, Riverwalk and the Panorama Bluffs this summer. Today, they were doing a low key time trial (see photo) where the frosh/soph got a head start. As I was leaving the first were finishing up.

Knowing Vondre and his background of good coaches at Bakersfield High and Arizona State, I am sure he will be rebuilding the program quickly. We both commented that having Ridgeview and Stockdale in your league was a tough nut to crack especially since Ridgeview was recently ranked by DyeStat as a top 100 team in the state.

Then there is Stockdale that was ranked number 5 in the super tough division one. Now for years Centennial was division 2 but were rewarded with their valley wins in 2007 by being bumped up to one. Hopefully the powers that be will go back to an enrollment only criteria and let a school compete against similar sized schools.

But despite all the obstacles, look for Centennial to be a much improved squad over last year.

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