From left are: Morro Bay Vice-Mayor, Jeff Eckles, track coach Jackie Wilson, state meet qualifiers Shelby Taylor and Wendy Wilson, head track coach, Jennifer Frere and MBHS Principal Scott Schalde. Photo by Neil Farrell
Morro Bay High students and band members lined up last Friday to give a warm send-off to two track athletes bound for potential glory at the State Championships.
Juniors Shelby Taylor and Wendy Wilson along with their coaches — Jennifer Frere and Jackie Wilson — were heading to Bullard High School in Clovis for the State Meet Prelims on Friday, May 29. If they ran fast enough they would return for the State Finals on Saturday (post EBN deadline).
Morro Bay Vice-Major Jeff Eckles spoke to the girls before the big sendoff telling them their community was proud of them and fully supportive of their efforts. After a few quick photos with coaches, Eckles, and school principal Scott Schalde, they left the school office and walked through a long line of their classmates to a rousing drumbeat by the school band’s drum corps.
Then it was into a school district van and a police escort — with lights flashing — to the City Limits before the roughly 200-mile trip to Clovis.
Head Track & Field Coach, Frere said Wendy Wilson recently won the CIF Section Championship in the 800 meters breaking her own school record and clocking 2 minutes 11.12 seconds in the effort. She followed that up with a third-place finish in the CIF Central Section Masters Meet, which combines the top finishers from each Division into one race for the honor of competing at the State Meet. Top-3 make it to State, she said.
Taylor was a double CIF Section Champion taking first in the 1600 meters and 3200 meters. She then finished third at Masters to qualify for State in the 1600. But her 3200 time landed her outside of the Top-3, so she’ll just be concentrating on the 1600 at State, Frere said.
Taylor also broke her own school record in the 1600 clocking 4:55.08.
Both girls said they weren’t nervous about the big meet and were excited to be returning to the championships.
Both also made State last year but finished out of the medal hunt. “It just wasn’t our day,” Wilson said.
Both girls laughed that last year the temperature was 105-degrees. But this year it was in the low 70s on Friday and in the low-80s on Saturday, considerably cooler than it was last year and more like Morro Bay weather.
Wilson said she wasn’t feeling nervous but was feeling “prepared.” Taylor said she was just excited to race.
Wilson said she’s looking at possibly attending the University of Washington after she graduates next year but hasn’t settled on anything yet. Ditto for Taylor.
Both girls have had impressive prep careers. Taylor medaled at the State Cross Country Meet in 2024, taking fifth place as a sophomore.
Both girls qualified for the State Cross Country meet that year.
In 2025, with Taylor sitting out the season, Wilson again made it to the State Meet as an individual runner, as the girls’ team finished out of the hunt.
Coach Frere said they had several other athletes do well at CIF this year. The Boys 4 X 800-meter relay team finished sixth and medaled. They were 9 seconds off the school record, the coach said.
Parker Brigham was a CIF Champion in the girls high jump clearing 5-feet 3-inches for a personal best. She jumped 5’ 1” at Masters and her season ended there.
Another girl, Rees Bright medaled in the 200 meters at CIF.
In league competition, the team didn’t fare so well. Coach Frere explained that in dual meets they go up against much larger schools, like Santa Maria and Pioneer Valley that can field a complete team with multiple athletes in each event.
That makes it tough for a small school like Morro Bay to compete. “We use league as a tune up for CIF,” she said. “It’s hard to be competitive as a team.”
No Medals at State Meet
Morro Bay’s two State Meet hopefuls didn’t make it out of the preliminary rounds last Friday, at the CIF State Track & Fields Championships.
Morro Bay’s Shelby Taylor and Wendy Wilson, both juniors, had qualified for the State Championship Meet held May 29-30 at Buchannan High in Clovis competing against the top runners in the whole State of California.
Taylor competed in the 1600 meters going up against a field of 28 and finished 14th. Her time in the metric mile was 4 minutes and 50.91 seconds.
The winner of that prelim race was Chiara Dailey of La Jolla in 4:46.00. So Taylor finished about 4 seconds behind the winner. The Top-12 in the prelims qualified to run in the finals.
The eventual State Champion in the 1600m was Braelyn Combe of Santiago in 4:35.59.
Wendy Wilson was the other Pirate to compete at State running the 800m. She finished 22nd in the prelims in 2:12.09.
The winner of the prelim race was again Combe of Santiago in 2:08.25, so Wilson also finished about 4 seconds behind the winner.
Combe went on to win the State Championship in the 800m as well, running even faster than her prelim time in 2:05.13.
