Trojans shine in midweek meet at Bonanza

The Pahrump Valley track and field team turned in one of their best performances of the season on Thursday afternoon when they traveled to the Las Vegas Valley for the midweek track meet at Bonanza High School.

Five schools – Durango, Indian Springs, Pahrump Valley, Bonanza and Chaparral – participated in the track meet.

Durango led all schools with a combined 14 first-place finishes between the boys and girls events. Pahrump Valley had the second most first-place finishes with eight.

Sophomore Dakota Fernandes and freshman Julianna Ondrisko had the top days for the Trojans.

Fernandes had three top-3 finishes on the day, setting a variation of records in all three of those events.

She set personal records in the girls’ 200-meter and 400-meter races.

Fernandes finished in second place in the 200-meter race, ending with a record time of 27.77 seconds, beating her previous personal record of 28.37 seconds that she set on April 5 at the Palo Verde midweek track meet.

In the 400-meter race, Fernandes got her only first-place finish of the day, ending the race with a time of 1:03.68. Her previous record time of 1:04.43 was set at the Richard Lewis Invitational earlier this season.

Her third record that was set was a season record time in the 100-meter race with a time of 13.64 seconds. She finished .01 seconds behind second-place finisher Sierra Hickman from Bonanza.

Despite not setting any seasonal or personal records, Ondrisko had a big day for Pahrump Valley.

She won first place in both of her individual events on the day.

Ondrisko won the 800-meter race with a time of 2:47.75, finishing more than 10 seconds faster than second-place finisher Regan Coupe of Bonanza who finished with a time of 2:58.29.

Her second win of the day came in the 1,600-meter race. This time, she had an even larger win margin.

Ondrisko ran a time of 6:03.69 in the 1-mile race. She finished more than 18 seconds faster than Julia Gamboa, who ran the mile-long race in 6:22.40, her fastest time of the season.

Sasha Strain, Aspen McCormack and Lillian McGhee all had wins for the Trojans.

Strain’s win came in the 100-meter hurdle event with a personal record time of 17.52 seconds, while McCormack’s win came in the high jump with a successful height of 4 feet, 6 inches and McGhee’s win came in the long jump competition with a season-long distance of 15 feet, 1 inch.

On the boys side of the competition, freshman Aydon Veloz and junior Brennen Benedict each took home individual wins.

Veloz set a personal record with his first-place finish in the boys 400-meter race. He finished the event with a time of 53.05 seconds.

In addition to his first-place finish, Veloz also had a runner-up finish in the high jump event, which is the same event Benedict took home his win.

Veloz successfully jumped a height of 5 feet, 4 inches, while Benedict jumped a height of 5 feet, 6 inches to win the event.

Pahrump Valley will be back in action this Thursday, April 20. They’ll be hosting their only track & field meet of the season.

The events are scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m.

Following Thursday’s track meet, the Trojans will have just two meets left in the regular season.

They’ll participate in the Faith Throwers Invitational at Faith Lutheran on Tuesday, April 25, then they’ll finish the regular season with a midweek meet at Liberty High School on Wednesday, April 26.

Contact sports writer/editor Danny Smyth at dsmyth@pvtimes.com. Follow @_dannysmyth on Twitter.