Four Wins for Long Beach Poly’s Jones

Derrick Jones of Long Beach Poly had a hand in four victories in the Southern Section Masters Meet at Cerritos College on Friday night, but the Jackrabbit senior wasn’t exactly in a celebratory mood afterward.

Jones, a senior, won the 100 in 10.50 seconds, the fastest time in the state this year, and the 200 in a career-best 20.97 to move to fourth on the national list for this year.

He also ran anchor legs on teams that won the 400 relay in 41.24 and the 1,600 relay in 3:13.96, but his mind was on the season-ending hamstring injury that rival Lionel Larry of Compton Dominguez sustained in the 100.

“I felt pretty good coming out of the curve,” Jones said of the 200 race. “I didn’t have my boy Lionel running with me. I was kind of upset at that, but I went out there and ran good anyway. I thought he was going to be able to run in the state meet so we could run a good time there, but unfortunately he got hurt.”

Larry, the defending state champion in the 200, was regarded as the state-title favorite in that event and the 100 after running a career-best 20.73 in the former and a wind-aided 10.37 in the latter in winning the Division II races of the Southern Section championships last Saturday. But he finished last in the 100 on Friday after straining his right hamstring during the race.

“He seemed fine,” Larry’s father Lionel said when asked how his son was feeling after anchoring Dominguez to a second-place time of 41.85 in the 400 relay. “Everything seemed good when he was warming up [for the 100].”

Senior Marquis Profit of Pasadena Muir, who ran career bests of 14.02 in the 110 high hurdles and 37.11 in the 300 intermediate hurdles, was the only other male competitor to win two individual events in the meet in which the top five finishers in each event qualified for the state championships in Sacramento on Friday and Saturday, as did any finishers who met an at-large qualifying mark in their events.

Profit’s times make him the second-fastest performer in the state this year in both events.

In other events, senior Michael Haddan of Irvine Woodbridge won the 800 in a state-leading time of 1:51.50 after surging past junior Josh Castaneda of La Verne Bonita in the final 80 meters, and senior Demitri Mosby of Cerritos Gahr won the boys’ long jump with a state-leading mark of 24-6 1/4.