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2007 CIF-State
Track and Field
Championships
Saturday, Saturday, June 2nd, 2007
By Rich Gonzalez
Editor, DyeStatCal
(SACRAMENTO) -- From the moment St. Francis HS vaulter Natasha Barthel unleashed her brilliant delivery of the national anthem right on through to the final gallop across the line by America's most dominant sprinter, Golden State athletes excelled right on cue in front of a final-day crowd of 11,171 and a live television audience at the 2007 CIF-State Track and Field Championships.
Headlined by continued virtuoso performances from Bryshon Nellum, Jeshua Anderson, Tori Anthony, Derek Johnson and Ke'nyia Richardson and a masterful breakthrough effort from Eric Avila, the final weekend highlights registered as among the most staggering in the 89-year history of the blockbuster meet:
Three National Federation records (including two national records outright)... four all-time state records... six state-meet records... seven yearly nation-leading marks ... and some of the deepest performance fields ever.
Most experts agreed. The synergystic efforts of the weekend's 1,053 athletes were better than any state meet since the highly chronicled 1981 affair considered as "the best ever" in state meet lore. In fact only that meet and perhaps the 1951 edition could make confident claims as being superior affairs, with the 1969 and 1971 meets at UCLA also meriting fair comparison to this one.
"Hey, this was a great meet. You don't see a lot of these types of times too often," said Track & Field News girls prep editor Mike Kennedy. "The missing pieces took away from it a bit ... Long Beach Poly girls at full strength could have challenged the national record and having a healthy (Alex) Kosinski in the 1600 could have made that race even faster, but all in all this was pretty spectacular in itself."
Capturing the team championships
Teamwise, Poly added to its unparalled success in the sport, capturing the men's title with 46 points as Nellum played a key role in all but six of those points. It marked a state record ninth men's title for the Jackrabbits of the Southern Section, with Coach Don Norford now at the helm for four of those crowns. The Long Beach coaching legend has also orchestrated all of the school's eight girls titles, having now amassed an amazing 12 of the school's 17 state championships in boys/girls track and field during his coaching tenure.
For the girls, Mt. Pleasant of San Jose overcame setback in the meet-opening short relay to eventually capture its first ever state title with a 44-point effort as Coach Steve Nelson's budding national power from the Central Coast Section interrupted the Southland dominance that had taken shape over the past two decades. Southern Section girls programs had either won or shared the state title in 19 of the last 22 seasons. This time, however, the Southern Section experienced an unprecedented drought in being shut out of the first five places for the first time in the 34-year history since sanctioned girls state team competition began in 1974.
Southern Section athletes dominated the winner's step on the podium in boys events, with those performers garnering victories in a stunning 13 of the 16 events! On the girls' side, the wealth of talent was more equally distributed among the dominant regions, with the North Coast, Central Coast, and Southern Sections amassing four event titles apiece.
Nellum merits talk of being "Mr. June"
Individually, the biggest meet headliner was Poly's Bryshon Nellum, who cast his name among the all-time greats in state meet competition via a cavalcade of feats. Nellum swept the 200- and 400-meter dashes for a second-consecutive year and added event wins in the 400- and 1600-meter relays as well. In the open dashes, he posted nation-leading 20.43 an 45.54 clockings, with the former being a California state record at 200 meters (breaking Olympian Quincy Watts' 20-year-old standard) and the latter ranking fifth on the all-time state performers list.
Nellum's 200/400 "double-double" (four golds in those two events over two years) was the first in state history, with Muir's legendary Obea Moore being the only other to achieve the feat even once, let alone twice. But Nellum's single-day state meet double was superior in times to Moore's parlay (20.91/45.81) in 1996.
Nellum's historical star power didn't cease there, with his four gold medals in a single meet being only the second time in the history of boys competition that such an awards haul had taken place. It was 91 years earlier that Manual Arts' Harry Lamport turned the trick, including winning in three now-defunct events (120-yard high hurdles; 220-yard low hurdles; 4x200 relay) and the long jump during the 1916 state meet. Bryshon's six career gold medals also equaled the state's overall record for wins, joining Oxnard's Clarence Houser, who captured three golds apiece in the shot put and discus from 1920 to 1922.
"Thank you to my teammates and thank you to God," said the high-profile yet even-keeled teenager. "My teammates push me to be better and I push them to be better. It's all in the teamwork."
National record books suffer a beating
With four national records already achieved by Californians earlier in this calendar year, the all-time lists figured to come under attack this weekend. Within a span of ninety minutes on Saturday evening, three athletes managed to directly hit their targets, with one national federation record and then two all-time records being shelled.
The first such record to be toppled was the girls 100-meter high hurdles, where Mt. Pleasant's Vashti Thomas began peeling away from the very talented field along the seventh hurdle and rode a crisp closing to a superb 13.03 clocking that shaved 0.17 seconds off Nichole Denby's 7-year-old national standard.
Thomas, who only ran 13.62 in prelims to rank as the #3 qualifier (thus drawing Lane 4 for Saturday's race), was helped along by a nice 2.0 meters-per-second tailwind in the final, which was right at the allowable maximum for record certification. St. Elizabeth's Julian Purvis edged Holy Names' Ke'nyia Richardson for second place in a battle of NCS rivals, although both were credited with identical 13.32 clockings that moved each into a tie for 11th on the all-time national lists. With fourth place (Dahlys Marshall of San Jose Valley Christian-CCS) at 13.66, this was the fastest wind legal race in U.S. prep history through at least four places, although an amazing six girls dipped under 14 seconds, also the deepest wind-legal race in state meet history, if not national history.
More than 80 minutes later, it was hurdler Jeshua Anderson's turn. The Taft HS star from the L.A. City Section fell just 0.02 seconds short of the national record in 300-meter intermediate hurdles qualifying the night before despite running an almost perfect race. Only a mild hiccup at the second hurdle prevented the all-time mark from crumbling.
In the final, however, Anderson exercised a little "give and take." He 'gave' up just slightly from the powered aggression utilized the night before, instead riding a more fluid approach with no snags whatsoever to 'take' the 22-year-old prep record away from Lompoc Cabrillo's George Porter. Although it appeared the Washington State-bound Anderson was on the verge of over-extending himself across the final two hurdles, he managed to gauge the last few seconds right at the red zone and clipped the timing beams in an amazing 35.28 performance that sliced 0.04 seconds off one of the most venerable marks in the record books.
Almost lost in all of the excitement was another exceptional outing by sophomore speedburner Reggie Wyatt of JW North, whose 35.90 runner-up placing carved a huge 0.42 seconds of Kerron Clements' 6-year-old national record for 10th graders. Anderson should savor the national high school record while he can, as once Wyatt begins to mature into his body, the first 34-second hurdler likely will be christened!
The third and final national record of the evening came in the girls' pole vault, where favored Tori Anthony of Castillejs HS (CCS) kept her high school unbeaten season intact with an outdoor lifetime-best 14-01.00 clearance that tacked four more inches onto New Yorker Mary Saxer's national record from two years ago. Anthony also holds the indoor natiional prep record with her 14-02.50 this past winter.
Anthony was absolutely clutch and the class of the competition here, clearing her opening and subsequent heights (12-04.00 and 12-10.00, respectively) to clinch the state title, then successfully negotiating 13-04.00 on her second attempt, matching the record 13-09.00 on her first attempt, then nailing the outdoor record 14-01.00 on her third attempt. Anthony then took three unsuccessful cracks at 14-03.25. Set to attend UCLA in the fall, Anthony took 11 attempts in the 110-minute competition.
St. Francis' Barthel, who earned a rousing ovation with a stunning rendition of the national anthem (she was AWESOME!) to kick off the meet, elicited additional cheers with an excellent bronze medal finish in the pole vault by clearing 12-10.00, the same height successfully maneuvered by surprise junior Kelsy Hintz of Del Norte.
Plethora of state meet records
There were a total of six state-meet records achieved, with the aforementioned marks in the boys 200, girls pole vault, girls high hurdles and boys intermediate hurdles classified as overall state records. Also getting submarined out of the all-time annals were the best marks in the boys pole vault and the girls' 1600-meter run.
In the vault competition, Germany-based transfer student Nico Weiler of Los Gatos (CCS) had the poise and ability reflecting well beyond his just-turned-17-year-old frame, with the grissled junior unwavering in the face of a stiff and surprising challenge from fellow 11th grader Blair Wallingford of Roseville (SJS). Weiler cleared his opening height of 15-10.00 on his first attempt and repeated the feat at 16-04.00 as the event whittled down to a two-person competition.
Wallingford, whose previous best was 15-06.00, enjoyed the afternoon of his life, rallying to make 15-04.00 on his third attempt before riding a newfound gust of confidence to clear lifetime bests of 15-10.00 and 16-04.00 on his first efforts at those heights, locking up the runner-up position in the competition.
Weiler then responded to the challenge in clutch fashion, twice nailing third-attempt situations with the first coming at 16-10.00 to seal the win and the next occurring at 17-02.00 to break Scott Roth's two-year-old meet record by an inch. Weiler then took thee stabs at the nosebleed height of 17-08.75, unable to draw close in what ended up as his 9th, 10th and 11th sttempts in the event.
Weiler is here in the United States as part of a foreign-exchange program, which means his athletic eligibility here is limited to one year under CIF state rules. However, Weiler indicated on Friday that he would be pursuing a change in educational/resident status later this month, when he returns to Germany. If successful in his bid, the polite-spoken teen could gain athletic eligiblity in his senior year at Los Gatos while finishing his secondary education.
The girls 1600 proved to be a doozy, with Woodbridge junior Christine Babcock shaking the tree hard with a tough early pace and everyone else falling off the branches in trying to keep pace with her bid to break the 5-week-old national record set on this very track! In a huge dose of irony, the national federation 1600m record had been broken by two Californians this spring, but neither was in the race as current recordholder Alex Kosinski of Oak Ridge was sidelined by a stress reaction in jry in her heel last weekend and Jordan Hasay of Mission Prep dropped the event to focus on the 3200,
Babcock knew it was up to herself to establish the aggressive pace needed to break Kosinski's fresh 4:38.15 standard, so she belted out splits ogf 68.8 and 2:19.8 to have the record in sight, but then wearied slightly in crossing the 1200m at 3:30.4 with a lap to go and others losing true contact. Needing a 67.7 or better to snatch the record, Babcock began to shift gears on the backstretch to put the mark within reach. Coming through with 200 to go, a buzz started in the crowd as a third Golden State athlete made a serious bid for the national record in as many months. Her finishnig effort left her just shy of the big goal, but still earning a meet record and lifetime best with a sensational 4:38.85 that moved her to second on the all-time national federation list and sparked the deepest showing of quality in state history. Seven California girls clocked 4:50.40 or faster for the first time ever! No other state in history has ever had two girls break under 4:40.00 on their all-time lists, yet California had three girls doing it in this year alone!
Going The Distance in Style
Both Jordan Hasay of Mission Prep and Cory Primm of Westlake endured a single loss in their specialty events in 2007, but you'll have to excuse them if each carried an asterisk of sorts. Hasay's lone setback in the 3200 came on the backside of a grueling double at the Sacramento Meet of Champions, when Kosinski established the national record and Hasay spent herself in trying to keep pace, then fell victim to Davis star Laurynne Chetelat later in the evening. Primm lost his only 800 of the season in Friday's qualifying, trying to measure to energy expenditure wisely in saving for the final and being just nipped at the line in qualifying.
This time out, there was hardly a doubt as the 2006 state champions successfully defended.
Hasay, who almost took a tumble during a crowded start that necessitated a recall, seemed in control all the way, with her long golden blonde hair surely providing a dizzying site for the chase pack, which quickly downsized to just the familiar Chetelat. This time, however, Hasay was not to be caught, instead being on 10:10 pace for much of the way, then throwing a final surge that further gapped the field and brought across the line in 10:06.76, netting the sophomore a second successive state title and moving into second place (behind national recordholder Kim Mortensen) on the all-time state meet list.
Primm, who was content to allow previously unheralded sophomore Charles Jock of Mission Bay (SDS) to set the first-lap pace, then bolted into the front at the start of the final lap in carrying 200-meter splits of 25.9 and 54.6 en route to pursuing his second consecutive state title. The UCLA-bound senior did have Madera's Rocky Richardson begin to size him in stalk-like fashion up going into the backstretch, but Primm crossed the 600m in 1:23.1, then exploded into a 27.8 close for the final half lap to assume control and earn the win. Santaa Margarita's Ryan Martin closed out a sensational year on his best note, passing two rivals in the final strides to earn the silver medal in a swift 1:53.23.
Royal Distances Superiority
In the highly competitive arena of distance running within state lines, Royal High's multi-lappers have built a body of superb work in recent years. It continued this weekend.
The Highlanders program captured a boys distances individual state title for a fourth consecutive year, this time with Princeton-bound senior Hudson Andrews laying claim to the 1600-meter championship. Andrews, known less as a miler in past seasons, produced a second consecutive perfect race in as many weekends to snare the win in a school record 4:07.59.
Andrews gained big confidence in defeating FootLocker national cross-country champion Chad Hall via a "long kick" last weekend, telling Royal coach Ryan Luce he now realized he had both the strength and the speed to defeat Hall in a rematch. He was absolutely right. Hall, who raced ultra-sparingly this spring and looked rusty in recent weeks (running fast times, but starting hard in races and falling off pace, seemingly having trouble gauging his overall effort) made a fierce bid to
Smile - You're On Camera!
The two-day meet played out before an aggregate crowd of 18,116 onlookers, with 6,945 of those turning out on Friday's opening day. Although the final-day turnout was not quite as dense of a few of the best-attended meets in years past, the crowd count was quite encouraging given the fact the meet was being shown live throughout the state by Fox Sports via regionalized cable television outlets. The three-person announcing team of Tom Feuer and Jim Watson called the action overhead from their finish line perch atop the stands while trackside reporter Lindsay Soto handled post-race interviews and updates in offering up fine blanket coverage.
Still more to come for Monday, including:
Canavan and Johnson - winning studies in contrast
Nellum is best, but Best ain't too bad either
Prentice wins the showdown of studs
Tarmoh the Torpedo
Youngblood/Richardson and best girls TJ field ever!
And More!
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