Cuesta Women's Track & Field claimed 1st place at the Western State Conference Championship for the first time since 1988.  The Cougars won six events and posted 22 all-conference (Top 5) performances.  

Freshman Sprinter Madeline Fletcher (SLO HS) and Sophomore Thrower Natalia Delgado (Bogota, COL: Paso Robles HS) each accounted for two wins for the Cougars, while Harrier Dulce Esquivel (SLO HS) and Vaulter Elen Zhu (San Francisco: Lincoln HS) both earned a trip to the top of the victory stand.  Fletcher burst onto the scene in the pandemic shortened season.  She won both the 400 and 800-meter races and finished 2nd in the 200-meters.  She posted season-best marks in two events and owns Cuesta Top 10 marks in all three events.  Her season-best time of :26.13 in the 200m earned 2nd place in the WSC and 5th all time at Cuesta, while her time of :59.44 in the 400m earned her a victory and the 4th spot all time at Cuesta.  Her other win came in the 800m, where she led a quartet of Cougars in order across the finish line with a time of 2:33.20.  Her season-best time of 2:17.49 ranks 9th all time at Cuesta.  Delgado was a one-woman wrecking crew as the only thrower on the team.  She picked up wins in the Shot Put (36-4.75) and Hammer (115-9), while finishing 6^th, and just missing all-WSC honors, in the Javelin (66-11).  Delgado ranks 6th all time at Cuesta in the Shot Put (38-5) and her victory in the Hammer moved her up to 9th all time.  Esquivel did a lot of heavy lifting for the Cougars over the past two weeks.  She earned all-conference first or second team honors in four events.  She finished 2nd to her teammate Madeline Fletcher in the 800-meters (2:34.40), before winning the 1,500-meter race (5:13.98).  She also added Runner-Up performances in the 5,000 (21:12.11) and 10,000-meter races. Her time of 42:56.22 in the 10K was fast enough to earn her the 8^th spot all time at Cuesta.  Zhu kept alive Cuesta College's legacy as a Pole Vault powerhouse, but she didn't have much competition this season.  Her leap of 10-6 easily cleared the bar and put her a full foot above the Runner-up.  The Cougars also received multiple all-Conference performances from Eva Kessler (Arroyo Grande HS), Julia Voss (SLO HS) and Emily Mathein (Paso Robles HS).  The multi-talented Kessler was the only Cougar to score and earn all-WSC in the non-throwing field events.  She finished 2nd in the High Jump (5-1), 3rd in the 100 Hurdles (:18.17) and 4th in the Long Jump (14-7.25).  Voss posted a 2nd and two 3rd place finishes on the day.  The Harrier finished right behind her teammate Dulce Esquivel in all three of their events.  Voss was 2nd in the 1,500 (5:15.43), and 3rd in both the 5,000 (21:12.28) and 10,000-meter (44:48.48) races.  Mathein was the top-seed in the 800-meter race (2:46.64) but in the final, she came in 5th behind teammates Fletcher, Esquivel and Jessica Schroeder (Atascadero HS).  She also finished 5th in the 10,000-meter race (45:54.05).   In all, Cuesta Women's Track and Field added seven new All Time Cuesta Top 10 marks during the abbreviated 2021 season.  Fletcher, Esquivel and Delgado, as noted above, combined for six new marks, while the eighth came from Sophomore Caitlyn Chesson (Paso Robles: Templeton HS). Chesson played on the Cuesta Women's Soccer team in the Fall of 2019 but, Women's Soccer went on hiatus during the pandemic and was the only team on campus not to compete this Spring, allowing Chesson to pursue track fulltime.  She earned all-WSC honors last week with a 4th place finish in the 400-meter race with a time of 1:03.32, but her earlier time of 1:02.21 landed her the final spot on Cuesta's All Time Top 10.