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Ten Prep Track & Field Stories to Watch for in 2008
10
California Stories to Watch for in the Spring of 2008 - Installment
#2 We thought it would be fun to list and discuss some of the stories that we think will make news during the coming spring outdoor track and field season in California at the prep level. With the stars continuing to roll down the pipe and hopefully some good conditions for the spring season it should be another ‘ton of fun’ to keep track of those on the track and in the field on the prep scene over the next few months once the real outdoor meets start in late February. With some folks with their eyes on record level performances those special moments in time that keep us all glued to the sport season after season appear very possible. Some great individuals are discussed below with we sometimes wishing we had a time machine to get right to the action during the season and not have to wait a few weeks! Here we go final five today
6) Can Long Beach Poly, with long sprinters that have run 53.15, 53.62 and 53.73 find a fourth and better its own national 1,600-meter record of 3:35.49? (It would require a sub 55.99) With the City of Long Beach, California having U.S. prep history’s top thirteen clockings ever over the 4x400 meter distance on the Girls’ side, between Long Beach Poly’s 3:35.49 National Record from 2004 and Long Beach Wilson’s 1996 National standard of 3:37.38, the year end national leader in the event typically is a race run by one of those two schools. For the record Poly has seven of those clockings, with Wilson six during the eleven year period. 2008 is not much different, with Poly having back for this season defending State individual 400 champ, Jasmine Joseph (53.15 #4 4 prep returnee in nation), Turquoise Thompson (53.62 #8 Hser back nationally), and Akawkaw Ndipagbor (53.73 in eighth grade, and the #9 one lapper in the nation among preps). No high school in US history has ever had three athletes on campus at one time who have run the 400 under 54 seconds in the open event, with one having to go back to the early 1980's to challenge that quality, with the Howard family who started at San Gorgonio and ended up at Kennedy of Granada Hills, with Sherri 51.48 and Denean 51.70 in the open event that Olympic year. Both Howards would fittingly go on to bring back medals from the Olympic Games in the 4x400 relay. Between 1979 and 1981 the Howard family, with an amazing four of them on the 1979 San Gorgonio squad that set a National Record of 3:42.8, brought the Girls 4x4 baton event into the modern age, dragging other California schools under the magic 3:40 barrier before ending at 3:37.71 in 1981 with three sisters on the Kennedy squad that season that set a record that lasted a few years. Prior to Kennedy’s efforts (pre 1979) the National HS record was 3:46.3. Back to current history, with Poly obviously needing a fourth runner to finish the event of some quality to take down a record that is of pretty darn good quality. 3:36.0 is a 54 second average, with something a tad better for an average to take the current 3:35.49 record down. Poly has some likely candidates, with Tanisha Hawkins 57.92, Tia Leake a 2:12.42 800 runner of note stepping down or 24.95 200 dasher Ashley Woodford moving up probably leading the charge for that final spot. The Jackrabbits have a number of other sub-12.50 100 and 25.60 200 runners who show the ability, should they be willing to put in the work and move up a bit in distance. Obviously the setting to tackle a record is important also, with the LB Poly team certainly first putting forth effort in bringing home team championships along the way, with events chosen by team member and the time constraints of some meets making the perfect situation often difficult to find. We are not sure if the Penn Relays are on the 2008 Jackrabbit schedule, but the east coast relay carnival has long been a showcase for the team’s relay groups, with the 44.50 current National 4x100 record set in a non-winning performance by the 2004 Poly group in chasing the Jamaican teams. Bryshon Nellum led the Boys 4x400 to a win last year at Penn in one of the meet’s highlights, with that weekend not an easy one to secure a great 4x400 time with possible weather concerns and qualifying heats that leave teams less sharp than they would like to be for record efforts in a the 4x400. There will be the Invitational, Section, and State Meets along the way with possibly the need for a big 4x4 effort to secure a team win inspiring the team to a special effort. Anyway, it will be interesting to watch, with the 2004 outdoor record setting Poly group (3:35.49) setting a still standing National indoor record of 3:38.91 at the mid-March national Scholastic Indoor Championships.
7) Can Vashti Thomas led San Jose Mt. Pleasant to a second straight State title and give Northern California another win, and can the Long Beach Poly Boys keep the magic going on to their third straight title or has the magic worn off with the graduation of Bryshon Nellum? With the graduation of a generation of stars each year, one looks ahead to the next year and who will be the team champions in the State meet. With Northern California working on a good string of Girls team successes, Logan the co-champs in 2006 with Long Beach Wilson, and Mt. Pleasant, behind Jeneba Tarmoh and Vashti Thomas, taking last year’s title, Northern California actually taking the first six team places in last June’s Girls State meet. With the state meet of the variety where an athlete or two can make a real impact in the scoring, especially if they can place high in more than one event. Vashti Thomas (Mt. Pleasant) is the nation’s top returning short hurdler (13.03), and is the nation’s top wind-legal returnee in the Long Jump (20-02) and #2 in the Triple Jump (41-06.5). With a number of the nation’s best nipping right at her heels in each of those events it does not seem fair to expect a clean sweep of all three events for Thomas, when fine efforts could have less than the 30 points possible with the ten points per win plan. Of course 28 points would have won last year, with Jamesha Youngblood lifting Hercules to 27 points and second in June’s State affair. We will see. There are some very fine programs around the state who will be very strong this coming spring. Long Beach Poly has a good group back, spread out through the long sprints, hurdles, and relays, with the potential to score a massive number of points, should they remain healthy and the baton keeps off the ground along the way. James Logan is another with depth for the relays and strong individuals such as Briana Stewart, who is the nation’s top returning Triple Jumper. St. Elizabeth of Oakland will score a bunch with sprinters Ashton and Julian Purvis. With an injury or two and a dropped baton along the way things can change quickly, with the build to June a fun one to watch from a team standpoint also. On the Boys’ side, Bryshon Nellum has led Long Beach Poly to two consecutive State titles, with some of the strong contributors to those efforts back for this spring’s season. Poly’s Evant Orange and Joey Hughes are dashers of note, and will form the core of fine relay squads for the coming season. Poly’s biggest challenge may come from its own Southern Secton, with the Charles Saseun-led Rancho Cucamonga team very talented and enough depth to spill over into the relays with real success. Williams Scudder, Irshad Stolden, Denzel Jones, Bobby Collins, and Arteze Spicer provide a great group to fill out both relays, with Collins (48.45 400) and Spicer (48.81 400 and sub 1:52.62 800 in 2006 capable of individual place scorings along the way. The Boys team contest seems a bit more open than the Girls, with a dropped relay baton or out of zone action along the way quickly sinking a prominent team’s hope.
8) With may class and age-group record already achieved, just what can hurdler Reggie Wyatt of Riverside North accomplish in the next two years? (There is a very good chance that with his physical stature he will be the fastest flat 400 runner of all time to attack the all time records at 300 and 400 hurdles). Over the last two seasons the latest great hurdler to come from JW North in Riverside has emerged in Reggie Wyatt. When we say there have been more than a few from there we certainly are not overestimating the situation, with Nichole Denby (2000 13.20 100mHH), Nicole Hoxie (1997 13.35 100mHH), Joanna Hayes (1995 13.38 100mHH), among the top twenty Girl short hurdlers of all-time in the US. Jeff Garrison (2001 36.30 300mIH) and Joanna Hayes (40.81 300mLH) had elite level long hurdle success, with the above mentioned kind of a tip of the iceberg in Coach Charles Leathers’ string of barrier stars. Wyatt has achieved mightily in the last two outdoor seasons, as the first frosh athlete in US Prep history to run under 37.50 with automatic timing with his 37.42 from 2006, with another time barrier shattered when he was the first soph in US history to run under 36 seconds with his 35.90 for second behind Jeshua Anderson’s National Record 35.28 at State. Wyatt added a 46.87 400m best during Section Championship running last year and was the anchor on a 4x1 squad that was 41.12 this past spring, so the tall, lanky Wyatt appears to have the bottom end speed and a body to continue to grow into as he lops the tenths off his barrier times over the 300 and 400 meter distance. Over the one lap hurdle distance Reggie is every bit as impressive, with a second place Nike Outdoor Nationals time of 50.10, a National Soph class record for that grade group, and a fourth place at the US Junior Nationals (under age 20) Championships at 51.01. He was second at the World Youth (under 18) Championships last summer at 50.33. He has a great rival at the prep level in Georgian William Wynne, with Wynne 50.09 to outlean Reggie at the NON meet, and racing to the Gold Medal in the World Youth affair. Wynne is back for his senior year in 2008 and when this duo hooks up, look out!! Long hurdle efforts involving Reggie bear very close watching over the next two seasons.
8) Just how fast can German Fernandez (Riverbank) run 3200meters/two miles this spring and Mac Fleet the 1600/Mile? Fernandez set a Course Record on the Woodward Park State Meet course that equates out to probably better than any other prep harrier performance in Golden State history, with Fleet racing Foot Locker National level performances early in the fall prior to injury, with a 2006-2007 school year having him also need to take some time off and ending the nation's top soph four lapper at 4:08.09 and second in state. Two who have cooked in recent seasons as underclass distance runners have been German Fernandez, who raced what most consider the top California Cross-Country effort ever with his 14:24 Course Record run at Fresno’s Woodward Park in the late November state meet, and mac Fleet, who impressed with his late season running that concluded with a 4:08.09 1600 and second at State, making him easily the top four lap tenth grader in the nation last year. Talk naturally moved to spring possibilities with Fernandez and Fleet, with Mac having a necessary surgery on his lower leg/ankle fit in near the end of the cross-country season, and taking him out of championship action that last campaign after a very impressive start. With Jeff Nelson’s 8:36.3 2 mile (8:33.4 equivalent 3200) still standing as the National Record nearly thirty years after being set in 1979, and the Burbank star’s 14:32 at the old course at Mt. SAC kind of thought of as the standard to match all Fall California prep harrier performances against, a course that ran very similar timewise to Woodward Park before it’s adjustment in recent years, discussion naturally goes to how fast the Riverbank star Fernandez can race eight laps this spring season. It will probably be very fast if he remains healthy, with Nelson’s record set in a near perfect setting, cruising along with pack in one of those late season May UCLA Pepsi sponsored affairs with a pack of Olympic level runners where he had plenty of company through a 4:16 first mile, then finishing off the 8:36.3 record. Fernandez is fearless, with track a bit of a different animal than cross-country, with Nelson the product of a finely tuned Burbank HS program that cranked out sub-4:20 and sub-9:20 two milers at a frightening rate during the 1960's and 1970's. The balance of distance, strength, speed, and finely tuned interval training that brings one to an ‘end of season’ peak in the spring is different than the fall season, where Fernandez was at an amazingly high level all season long. Then there is the correct setting for such a race, and we doubt that any prep top prep contest at the distance has had a pack at under 4:20 like Nelson’s record. Luke Puskedra from Utah, who pushed the pace out at 2:09 for the first 880 at the Foot Locker Nationals, and just recently raced 4:08 indoors for a mile in Boston, is in our eyes a better long distance runner than miler, and if the duo would hook up in the right setting with an early quick pace, it would be very interesting to see what would happen. Puskedra has the ability to push the second two-thirds of a prep distance race on the track as strongly as anyone we have seen at that level, and with both athletes (Fernandez-Puskedra) healthy it would be very, very interesting. The Nike Outdoor Nationals in June has recently been the site of impressive two mile races, with again the need for a quicker early pace than those have had in recent years, with a 4:25.7 first four lap mile time during the 8:41.55 winner by Matt Centrowitz. These are some possibilities to consider down the road as we watch things unfold in the 3200/2 mile. Mac Fleet has shown amazing abilities so far at points in his high school career. The tall San Diegan was injured for a time his frosh year and came back undertrained to frosh bests of 1:55.72 for 800 meters and 4:25.56 for a mile. Last year he raced to an early spring 3:50.48 for 1500 meters, and was 4:08.09 at the State meet for second in the 1600, easily the best soph time in the nation for the 1600/mile distance last year. This Fall he impressed with an early season win on the flat at Woodbridge, followed up with a Pepperdine Invitational win against a good group on a challenging wet course, and eventually required surgery on a lower leg/ankle situation that caused irritation. He was a non-starter despite entry in the recent Run for the Dream indoor meet in Fresno, and traveled to the Boston Indoor meet where Puskedra ran 4:08 for a mile and finished in 4:28, obviously in less than top shape. With more than one impressive comeback during his prep career thus far we are far from writing off the University City of San Diego star, with a long, long time between now and the State meet and post-season affairs in June, and given his ability to come through need be at championship time we look for some great things at the end of the 2008 season. Brad Surh (Carlmont) and some others appear capable of racing very fast, so Fleet should not be lacking for competition, with those match-ups, should he be in decent health between now and then worth very much looking forward to.
10) Which California athletes would appear to have a good shot at making the US Junior National squad for the World Junior (under age 20) championships in Poland this July? There is no higher honor than to wear your country’s national uniform in international competition. The lessons to be learned at the international level are in a whole different world as compared to the local or even national scene here, and invaluable in elite athlete development. This summer there is a nicely-timed World Junior Championships in Poland in early July, with qualifying for that competition from the late June US Junior (under age 20) championships at Ohio State University June 20-22. Competition internationally is set up on year of birth instead of grades in school, as we are so used to, with “Junior” athletes internationally (under 20) meaning you cannot be born anytime during the year 1988 or earlier to compete in international junior age competition at a world level this year. Anyone who turns 20 during 2008 (1988 or later birthdate) would not be eligible for the 2008 World Junior Championships, with obviously US citizenship a requirement for US National team membership. Because of this age ruling, there are a good number of collegiate frosh who can qualify for a US Junior National team, with the squad typically about half collegian and preps in make-up. There are fairly stiff standards to enter the US Junior Championships and to enter the World Junior Championships, with sometimes the US not able to supply athletes who make the World standard for the international meet. There are two athletes usually picked per event, with extra athletes picked for the 4x1 and 4x4 relay squads up through the 400. It is expected that a number of Golden State preps should be very competitive for spots on the 2008 US Junior squad but particpation in the US Junior Championships in June is required. Rancho Cucamonga’s Charles Saseun appears one of the best half-dozen eligible age sprinters with his 10.37 100m best, with the squad typically taking more than two from the US Junior championships to fill out the relay teams. Interestingly Bryshon Nellum, now of USC is still eligible age-wise, but we assume he will be making a serious Olympic team effort this summer, but may have the Junior meet as a “fall-back” if the very competitive US 400 Olympic level situation does not work out. Mac Fleet (University City) is one of the nation’s top 1500/mile area runners eligible for the team, with German Fernandez certainly capable of a 5000 or 10,000 meter effort that would appear to make him competitive for a team spot should he compete in the US Junior meet (one can qualify for the 5000 or 10,000 at the US Juniors off 3200 times). Reggie Wyatt of North, Riverside, is one of the top athletes eligible in the 400 meter hurdles in what is a very tough event currently at the Junior level. Continued improvement could have Maurice Valentine of Castro Valley, the nation’s top soph High-Jumper last year, competitive for a US team spot. It is assumed that Nico Weiler (Los Gatos/German native) will be at the World Junior Championships representing his native Germany, provided he makes that very solid squad. Dayshan Ragans (Foohill, Bakersfield) is the nation’s top returning 12 pound Shot Putter, but he will have to throw the 16 pound international implement at the junior championship meet, with some thriving with the added weight, others having some difficulties for a time. Conor McCullough (Chaminade, West Hills) would appear to be in great shape to make the US squad in the Hammer, with his ability level there discussed in the first installment in this series. World Youth Gold Medalist Ashton Purvis has eligiblity forever at this level (under 20) as she will not turn 16 until early July of 2008, and she will be part of the great flock of junior age flyers, with people including Jeneba Tarmoh (former Mt. Pleasant now at University of Tennessee) still eligible age-wise. Jasmine Joseph (LB Poly) is among the top ten eligible 400 meter athletes with her 53.15 best, with a healthy Justine Fedronic (Carlmont) appearing competitive over the 800 meter distance. Jordan Hasay (Mission Prep), University of Oregon frosh Alex Kosinski, and Christine Babcock (Woodbridge) would be three of the top candidates for team membership over the 1500 meter distance, with Hasay and Kosinski, who had a stunning cross country season for the Ducks this Fall with a thirteenth place finish in the NCAA Division I finals. Hasay was a World Youth (under 18) silver medalist last year in those championships, with the Junior National team a great possibility for Babcock should she not achieve an Olympic Trials qualifying clocking over 1500 meters this spring (4:10.0 is the “ A” standard (guaranteed spot in the field) with the field limited to 30 - there is a “B” Standard of 4:19.50, with 30 American females running 4:16.25 or better last year). Christine has to pick her races carefully with 4:16.25 nothing to sneeze at. There are both 3000 and 5000 races in the World Junior meet should Hasay or Kosinski decide to move up in distance from the 1500. Vashti Thomas (Mt. Pleasant) is one of the quickest short hurdlers eligible for the competition with her super 13.30 best, with Julian Purvis (St. Elizabeth) among the top half dozen Americans “juniors” over the distance. Turquoise Thompson (LB Poly) 41.74 over the 300 hurdles, and Angelica Weaver (Rancho Cucamonga) 58.73 over the full 400 meter hurdle distance, will be competitive for US team spots in the 400 hurdles. In the Long Jump and Triple Jump a number of Golden State females seem competitive for US team spots, with Vashti Thomas, Karynn Dunn, Bianca Stewart, Amanda Hunter, and Alitta Boyd hopefully considering competing for positions. We are sure athletes such as Hasay and Ashton Purvis would indicate their international experience as members of the US World Youth team, with Jordan second against the Kenyans in the 1500 and Purvis through numerous rounds in the sprints before she mined gold in the medley relay, as invaluable as any they have had in the sport so far. While we are sure there are more stories that will develop during the spring of 2008, and we already have some coming to mind that we may have left out, but we did limit our series here to ten in total, with a ton more stories helping to make this another historic campaign in our sport. Doug Speck/Mike Kennedy
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