Young, Scott lead charge into Div. 3 finals
COSTA MESA – Irvine sprinter Sean Young sounded a bit coy when he said next week at the CIF-SS championships he intended to “go all out” in his events.
Woodbridge’s Gabrielle Scott echoed Young, saying, the ultimate goal is the state meet and that the Warriors were simply “trying to get as many athletes to CIF finals” as they could.
For the most part, what Young and Scott summed up is no different than the approach of many of Orange County’s top competitors at Saturday’s Division 3 preliminary meet at Estancia High - they just wanted to qualify and move on.
Yet it’s hard to quantify the difference between going all out and just trying to qualify, especially when Irvine and Woodbridge were among nine county schools that advanced at least five athletes and 14 schools with at least one qualifier.
Overall, the top nine finishers in each of the 32 events make it into next week’s CIF championships at Cerritos College.
The Vaqueros had 10 qualifiers, including Young in the 400 and 200 and Kamron Shahbahrami, who moved on in the 100 and 200. Irvine will also send its girls 400 and 1,600 relay teams and its boys 400 team.
Scott qualified in the 200 and as the anchor of Woodbridge’s 1,600 relay team. But the 400, her first race of the afternoon, was her finest performance.
The senior finished with a meet-high time of 57.12, making her signature event seem easy.
“I was just trying to get out hard,” Scott said. “But the wind was pretty strong so I had to work harder than I thought I would.”
Orange Lutheran, under the direction of first-year coach JT Ayers, qualified a county-high 12 events.
“I think our kids did exactly what they were supposed to do, and I would say even more,” Ayers said. “We’re both surprised and happy to compete for another week, but I would I say a little bit that the kids expected this.”
Cherish Harris finished sixth in the triple jump (36 feet, 6 1/2 inches) for the Lancers and was one of nine girls who cleared 5-2 in the high jump.
Orange Lutheran also performed well in girls distance events with Jessica Marquardt (third in the 3,200) and Taylor Williams (fifth in the 1,600) and Ava Kent (seventh in the 1,600) moving on.
The Lancers’ girls 1,600 relay squad finished tenth (4:01.98), 0.14 seconds behind ninth place St. Lucy’s.
Perhaps the most exciting event of the afternoon was the fourth heat of the boys 200. With Jon Simon of Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks leading for much of the race, Young and Servite’s Malik Felton closed in with only a few meters to go.
“I just kept down low, kicked it up a little bit more, kept my form, and then relaxed through the rest of it,” said Felton.
Simon prevailed with a time of 21.89 (fourth overall), but Felton (22.03) and Young (22.16) qualified as well.
Felton was involved in another close finish later.
In the 1,600 relay, Servite trailed by fewer than 10 meters when the stocky senior was handed the baton in the final leg. He took the lead around the second turn and held off a late charge from San Marcos to finish with a team time of 3:24.20, good for second overall.
Pacifica’s Trent Langham, who finished third overall in the 200 (21.84), qualified in the 100 and as part of the 400 relay team. The Mariners qualified five events in all.
“It’s a pretty good achievement for such a small school going so far,” Langham said. “I mean we’re aiming for Masters.”
Other notable performances:
• Mason Champieux of Laguna Hills finished third in the 400 with a time of 50.48. The senior also qualified in the 200. He was one of 11 Orange County athletes to qualify in multiple individual events.
• Corona del Mar’s Karle’h Wilson had the top mark in girls shot put with a throw of 41-3, more than 3-feet further than second place finisher Arica Nassar of Temescal Canyon. In addition, Wilson had the second furthest discuss throw at 124-08.
• All five heats in the boys 400 relay were won by county schools, including Irvine’s top time of 42.58.
• Woodbridge’s Dragan Simic was the top qualifier in the boys 1,600. Simic, a junior, finished with a time of 4:17.27, more than three seconds better than South Pasadena star Sam Pons, one of the nation’s top distance runners, who finished second.
• Freshman Caroline Hilley of Santa Margarita finished ninth in both the 100 and 300 hurdles, despite tumbling over the final hurdle of the latter race.
• In the third heat of the girls 1,600, Kent led for more than two laps, but was overtaken by Amy Weissenbach of Harvard Westlake and Ashlee Powers of Corona del Mar. All three runners qualified.
• Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks, the top seeded team in the boys 400 relay (41.49), failed to qualify after a botched baton handoff in the fourth leg.
