Arcadia Invitational : Stevenson 2nd, Sets 400 Mark

The word second seemed to dominate Michael Stevenson’s evening on Saturday. Second meet, second place, still second on the Morse locker-room bulletin board . . .

In fact, the concept of runner-up dominated the the day of several San Diego County athletes at the 21st Arcadia Invitational at Arcadia High. Four athletes finished second.

The only first that Stevenson, a senior from Morse, could claim was the fastest 400 meters ever by a San Diego County athlete. His time was 47.24.

But he finished second to Travis Hannah of Hawthorne, who won in 46.84.

That was frustrating, Stevenson said, because he felt he could run faster.

“I didn’t start running until they had made up the stagger,” Stevenson said. “I was in (lane) eight so I didn’t see anyone until the straightaway (about 100 yards before the finish). If I had been running in lane 4, I could have seen everybody the whole race. I was running by myself out there. It’s hard for me to run fast when there is no one to go against.”

The only thing worse than that was the prospect of walking into the Morse locker room every day and seeing that he is still second to Morse’s Tony Banks.

Banks won the state title at 440 yards in 1979 with a 47.28. Since that race was in yards, it can no longer be considered a San Diego Section record.

But when it is converted to an equivalent 400-meter time, it is 46.98. That means until Stevenson runs faster than that in the 400 meters, he’ll be second on Morse’s board.

“I walk in there every day and see that up there,” said Stevenson, who is running for only the second year. “That’s one of my goals. Hopefully, I’ll get that pretty soon and get it out of the way.”

Stevenson’s performance was also impressive because it was his second meet of the day. He won the 400 (48.13) at the Poway Track Festival earlier in the day. The Arcadia 400 was his fifth race of the day; he also ran the anchor leg on Morse’s 1,600-meter relay team, which finished last later in the evening.

“It wasn’t that bad,” he said. “I had plenty of time to rest. I slept on the way up and listened to music.”

After not losing in a CIF race since last year’s state meet, Kira Jorgensen of Rancho Buena Vista found out what it feels like to be second . . . and third.

In her second race of the day, the 3,200 meters, Jorgensen was right with Laurie Gomez of Boardman High in Youngstown, Ohio, through 800 meters, but then Gomez took off. Gomez won 10:31.40; Jorgensen’s 10:41.25 was much slower than 10:24.23 section record she set at this meet last year but the fastest in California this year.

Jorgensen, a junior, also was third behind Gomez (4:48.59) and sophomore Karen Hecox of West Covina South Hills (4:50.93) in the 1,600 meters. Her time was 4:53.41, sixth best in the nation this year.

After finishing fourth in the discus (168-11), Brent Noon of Fallbrook put the shot 62 feet 0 inches for the second time this year. He finished second to the national-best 63-2 3/4 by Huntington Beach Edison’s Kaleaph Carter. La Jolla’s Charles Huff was also second-place news. He improved on his season best 47-5 with a 48-7 in the triple jump.

Meet Notes

Mark Senior, a senior at Mount Miguel, won the open 800 meters with a state-best 1:53.09, 2.8 seconds faster than second-place finisher Robert Mata of Roosevelt. Senior’s time was the third-fastest in San Diego County history . . . Teammate Kevin Jones also took the state lead in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles. Jones’ time of 37.88 was the second-fastest time in county history, behind St. Augustine’s Jay Taylor’s 37.20 set in 1985.