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I am anchor
WEST VALLEY PREPS
Canyon View wins West Valley-centric relay at state
Jaguar girls place third at Open meet
Independent Newsmedia/Jason W. Brooks
Canyon View senior and 4-by-800 relay anchor Aniya Smith pulls away from Audrey O'Connor of Basha in their May 17 race at the AIA Open State Track & Field Championships in Mesa. Smith and her team won the race.
MESA — Aniya Smith knew the person she had to beat was wearing the same type of white track and field jersey as she and her Canyon View teammates.
That person was Audrey O'Connor of Basha. She and Smith were the anchors of the 4-by-800-meter relay — the first track event held May 17 as part of the 2025 AIA Open State Track & Field Championships.
Smith got the baton from teammate Ryane Ast just after O'Connor had taken off, but by the end of the first of the two anchor laps, Smith was right on her Basha opponents’ heels.
The Canyon View senior then overtook O'Connor early in the final lap and kept ahead of her, giving the Jaguars the win.
Taelyn Janssen ran the first two laps of the relay for the Jaguars, with Peyton-Rae Isaac taking the baton for the second leg.
O’Connor High and Mountain Ridge also had teams in the 4-by-800 relay. O’Connor placed fourth and MRHS was fifth.
The win helped the Canyon View girls team place third overall at the two-day Open meet with 44 points. Chandler High ran away with first place with 74 points; runner-up North Canyon had 47.
The Jaguar girls bested several West Valley teams who had qualifiers at the all-classes meet. Liberty placed fifth with 33 points; ALA-West Foothills was 16th with 15 points.
Smith ended up in first place in three of the four events that she competed in at the Open meet. In addition to the 4-by-800, she anchored the winning 4-by-400 relay and she won the 400 meters with a time of 54.4 seconds.
Isaac and Ast placed third and fourth in the 400 meters, respectively. Rylee Fields placed eighth in the discus for the Canyon View girls.
Jason W. Brooks is a News editor for the Daily Independent and the Chandler Independent.
He covers the Chandler area for both yourvalley.net and the monthly print edition while writing for and assisting in the production of the Daily Independent.
Brooks is a well-traveled journalist who has documented life in small American communities in nearly all U.S. time zones.
Born in Washington, D.C. and raised there and in suburban Los Angeles, he has covered community news in California, New Mexico, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska and northern Arizona.
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