BHHS Relay Teams Medal at Mt. SAC

It was a weekend of surprises for the Beverly Hills High boys and girls track and field teams, which had impressive results at the 53rd annual Mt. SAC Relays in Walnut. Both the boys and girls squads tied for 25th in team competition.

The boys accumulated 10 points, most of them generated by their relays.

The Norman 4 x 800 relay team of Chanan Batra, Nicky Harper, Alex Rohani and Josh Galen got Beverly Hills off to a good start at Mt. SAC, running fifth in the invitational division in 7:54.89 to break the school record on Friday.

"That kind of set the tone for the whole meet," Rohani said.

On Saturday, Rohani ran in the 800-meter seeded race and finished second in 49.16, just eight hundredths of a second behind winner Ariel Arguello of Paramount. 

Later in the afternoon, the foursome of Ariel Nassib, Mario Conti, Cameron Countryman and Rohani took third in its heat and eighth overall in 43.53 in the 4 x 100 seeded division.

In the evening, Countryman placed sixth in the 200-meter dash invitational race in 22.18 seconds. 

Perhaps Beverly Hills' most impressive performance was Nassib, Countryman, Rohani and Frank Brown winning their heat in the 4 x 200 relay seeded division by almost three seconds and taking third overall in 1:30.60.

The foursome got off to a huge lead thanks to Countryman's blazing second leg. By the time Brown took the baton for the anchor, the Normans had opened a huge lead over Long Beach Millikan.

"I took it out easy and was really relaxed the first 50 meters, then I turned it up," Countryman said. "I didn't think we'd do as well as we did. It's the third fastest time our school's ever had."

Brown doesn't necessarily like running the final leg, but he enjoyed the experience on Saturday.

"Today, there was no pressure," he said. "My teammates gave me the lead and I just kept it."

Beverly Hills' last boys event was the 4 x 400 relay invitational, in which Batra, Conti, Countryman and Rohani finished seventh in 3:23.48. 

The girls also scored most of their 13 points in relay events.

On Friday afternoon, Ashley Bootesaz, Sydney Gray, Brianna Simmons and Lily Ting took fifth in the 4 x 800 invitational race with a time of 9:37.79. 

On Saturday afternoon, Gray ran seventh in the 800-meter invitational with a time of 2:19.72.

In the evening, Vanessa Torres, Allison Wolff, Gray and Simmons took sixth in the 1600 sprint medley invitational in 4:17.62.

One of the final events of the meet was the distance medley invitational, in which the Beverly Hills team of Bootesaz, Gray, Jessica Robert and Sydney Segal took seventh in 12:33.56.

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