The USATF Junior Olympic National Championships wrapped up on Sunday in Sacramento, Calif., and athletes from the East Valley were all over the award stand throughout the six-day meet.
As I posted in a blog item last week, Austin Hornbaker of the Arizona Cheetahs Track Club was the first national champion, winning the Midget Boys pentathlon, but he wasn’t the last.
On Thursday, Carlan Naisant won the Bantam Boys (ages 9 and 10) javelin with a throw of 122 feet, 2 inches. Naisant competes for the Arizona Flames Track Club.
The other national …

The last and perhaps biggest track and field meet of the year is coming.
After two rounds of qualifying, the nation’s elite individuals will swoon upon Sacramento, Calif., for the USA National Junior Olympic Track and Field Championships.
The nation’s best of the best from ages 8 through 18 begin competition Tuesday and run through Aug. 1.
All competitors are divided into five classifications: Bantam (born in 2000 or later), Midget (born in 1998 or 1999), Youth (1996 or 1997), Intermediate (1994 or 1995) and Young Men/Women (1992 or 1993).
(Yes those birth years …

Chandler High isn’t the only school with a future track star or two.
Ashlee Moore is an incoming freshman at Hamilton, but she’s already qualified to participate in USA Track and Field National Junior Olympics in Sacramento beginning July 27.
She won two gold medals and a silver at the regional meet last week in Pueblo, Colorado. She qualified in the high jump with a jump of 5 feet, 7 inches (six inches beyond her closet competitor). Moore also won the long jump with a leap of 17 feet, 10-1/4 inches and …