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by Ed Grant
Netters:
Florida sprinters stole the show at the final day of the National
Scholastic meet today at the NY Armory Center with Bershawn Jackson
of Miami
doubling the boys 200M and HH and Sanya Richards of Pembroke Pines
not only
doubling the girls' 200 and 400, but smashing the national record
in both
races.
Jackson's unusual double saw him first take the HH in 7.94. then
run
away from the 200 field in 21.29,
Richards, a Jamaican national, first won the 400 in 52.10, which
not
only was a national scholastic mark, but was also faster than the
winning
time in Saturday's NCAA Division I final. This kind of thing hasn't
happened, I believe, since Michelle Rowen of Washington Twp (NJ)
won the
Eastern HS mile in 4:43.16 back in 1983 (but, of course, it's easier
to see
it happening in a distance race where the college event could turn
into a
tactical race).
Richards then came back to win the 200M in 23.22, breaking the
record of 23.41 she had set in Saturday's trial rounds. Angel Perkins
of
Cerritos, Calif., who held the previous national park of 23.59 and
had won
here a year ago, scratched from the race after pulling up lame in
the 400.
Richards is a senior at St. Thomas Aquinas HS in Fort Lauderdale,
an
institution which has produced its share of athletic legends over
the years,
both good and bad: On the the good side, Chris Evert, Brian Piccolo,
Michael
Irvin and Sheila Sua; on the bad side, the infamous Rosie Ruiz of
Boston
Marathon (sh)ame.
Another national record fell in the boys 800R where Deep Creek,Va.,
ran away from the favored California teams in 1:27.09. This broke
the record
set at this meet in 1997 by the legendary John Muir team from Pasadena,
Calif. And what made it even more impressive was that it was accomplished
with a series of simply horrible stick passes. With even moderately
good
baton work, the Tidewater team would have been well under 1:27.
In the girls' 800R, Long Beach Poly, running as the Speed City
TC,
broke the meet record of 1:37.17 and came close to the national
mark of 1:36.55 as it
defeated California rival John W. North in 1:36.90.
The 2Miles provided a pair of impressive runaway victories for
Utah
runners. In the boys' race, Nurani Sheikh of Salt Lake City, who
had
finished 2nd in a fast 5K race 48 hours earlier, started slowly,
but soon
caught and passed the field and won by 50 yards in 9:03.41. In the
girls'
event, defender Laura Zeigle of South Jordan quickly left the field
behind
and won in 10:23.34.
The girls' race had a pair of fast races by 8th-graders. Jen Croghan
of Nutley (NJ) finished 4th in 10:48.48 and tiny Bria Wetsch of
Minnesota was
6th in 10:50.79. When I say tiny, I mean tiny; Bria isn't much
taller than my 5-year-old twin granddaughters.
Perhaps the most surprised (and surpirsing) winner of the day
was
Julia Lucas of Charlotte, NC, in the girls' mile. She had only been
elevated
to the seeded heat on Saturday night after the hot favorite, Melissa
Donais
of Massachusetts (2nd last year) scratched. Julia had run a 4:51
lead in the
DMR on Friday and that got her the nod. She took the lead from the
start,
passed the half-way mark around 2:20 and only began to tire on the
final
lap, but held on to win by 12 yards in 4:51.56. The first six girls
beat
5:00. In third place at 4:54.03 was
Casey Nelson of Hunterdon Central (NJ) who ran her first track race
only
three months ago, but still says she will be playing soccer again
next fall.
Utah had another winner in the girls' 800 where Heidi Magill of
Orem
upset hometown favorite Selena Sappleton of A. P. Randolph in 2:09.44.
Sappleton, however, had put in a hard weekend, anchoring her team
to an
upset of Boys and Girls in the SMR on Friday and, this morning,
bringing
home the bacon again in another defeat of B&G in the 3200R in
a MR of
8:59.82. And I have to believe she was also a part of the Randolph
team
which finished up a hat trick with a 3:44.47 win in the 1600R (another
event
I missed).
The top field event mark of the day came across the Harlem River
at
Manhattan College where Michael Freeman joined older brother Jacob
as a
National champ by taking the weight throw at 74-3 3/4.Jacob, now
a Manhattan
junior, won the event at 77-2, in 1999.
Jason White of Opalousa, La., was fittingly enough the TJ winner
at
48-11, the Bayou State being once the home of that event in the
U.S. LJ
winner I-Perfection Harris of Poly Prep, the LJ winner on Friday,
was 3rd at
46-8.
Most disappointed athlete of the day was probably Ray Williams
of
Scotch Plains (NJ). An apparent victory in the 400 was cancelled
when he was
disqualified for cutting in too soon off the second turn on the
opening
lap---a move which did him little good as he was 5th past the 200
mark and
had to pass four runners in the last 100 meters to cross the line
first. he
was later 2nd in the 200.
DyeStat US
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