LA CRESCENTA — Apparently, Crescenta Valley High track and field Coach Mark Evans taught his two sons the proper way to put together a quality program.
Chris Evans and younger brother Rob have learned well from the pointers given by their father. For the first time in their respective coaching careers, the Evans brothers coached against their father.
The younger Evanses got the best of the first matchup, as Golden Valley swept a nonleague dual meet Thursday afternoon at Crescenta Valley.
Golden Valley won the boys’ portion of the meet, 77-58, and the girls’ competition, 76 1/2 to 59 1/2 .
“We’ve tried to organize this for several years,” Mark Evans said. “We had a chance to finally do this and they are a very good team.
“They were ready to compete. We’ll do it again. It’s a good meet because we match up well against each other.”
Chris and Rob graduated from Crescenta Valley in 1997 and 1999, respectively.
Both were distance runners on the Falcon boys’ team under Mark’s guidance. The brothers, who took over Golden Valley in 2007, reside in La Crescenta.
Chris said the experience of coaching against Mark proved to be invaluable.
“He taught us a lot,” said Chris, who saw both of his teams improve to 2-0. “It was neat to come back here where we ran.
“It was a special feeling. It’s special to beat a solid program.”
Rob, an English teacher at Golden Valley in the Santa Clarita Valley, said the Grizzlies are looking to pattern themselves after the Falcons.
“Our No. 1 goal is that we want to go out and emulate the program and be deep at all levels,” Rob said. “The biggest thing about [Thursday] was to go out and have a good time with it.”
Crescenta Valley (0-2) had six first-place finishes. Parker Averill, James Maturan, Bryan Yaung and David Lim teamed up to clock 45.03 seconds in the 4x100-meter relay. Andrew Roide of Crescenta Valley took the high jump (six feet) and Averill won the 100 (23.1). Crescenta Valley also received first-place finishes from Josh Straschewski in the 300 intermediate hurdles (43.3), Nick Psaltis in the shot put (44 feet) and Michael Duncan in the 800 (2:04.09).
In the girls’ portion of the meet Crescenta Valley (1-1) saw Tiernan Hebron win the 400 (61.6) and the 200 (26.8). Melanie Samvalian won the shot put with a personal-best mark of 35-9 1/2 for the Falcons, who also got a first-place performance from Brooke Moultrie in the 3,200 (12:06).
Mark Evans said both of his squads need more experience.
“We need to be prepared for [the Pacific League],” Evans said. “We have a lot of work to do, but we will get better.
“We have to keep going.”
