Girls track and field: CdM wins CIF title

Joseph Boo

NORWALK - To all those skeptical about Corona del Mar High junior

Jenny Cummins skipping the 400 meters to concentrate on the 800, she had

one simple answer: 2:16.01.

That was the personal record Cummins turned in for the 800 in Saturday’s

CIF Southern Section Division III girls track and field finals at

Cerritos College.

She finished second behind teammate Liz Morse, who won in 2:14.14. Those

two earned 18 team points in the 800 and that catapulted CdM to a team

title. They also qualified for Friday’s Masters Meet, which includes the

top nine runners from all Southern Section divisions.

“Everyone made a big deal about that,” Cummins said about not running the

400, even though she had the third-fastest qualifying time for the CIF

preliminaries, “but it paid off at the end.”

After the 800, CdM leapfrogged Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks, which finished

second, for a 10-point lead. It also validated CdM Coach Bill Sumner’s

strategy of holding Cummins to one event while allowing Morse to run a

grueling schedule of four races.

“People kept second guessing me,” he said. “Parents were asking about it.

And about 40 coaches came up to me and said, ‘You don’t have a chance.’ I

gathered all my kids and told them not to listen to them, and that we did

have a chance. It was a longshot, but we had a shot and we took it. If I

felt we didn’t have a shot, then I would have run the race differently.

But I felt we did and we had to take it.”

Morse did her part with two individual CIF titles. Besides advancing to

the Masters in the 800, Morse won the 400 with a Masters qualifying time

of 55.89, though she will skip this event to focus on the 800. The only

event Morse did not qualify for Masters was the 200, in which she

finished third in 25.22.

“Obviously a lot of things went well for us today,” Morse said. “In the

Orange County Championships, we lost by only three points, so I knew we

had the potential to win. A lot of stuff had to happen for us and it

did.”

The stuff that happened included Mater Dei only getting four top-three

finishes and defending champ Santa Margarita losing its 1,600 relay team after two kids unexpectedly quit before the prelims. Hence the Eagles,

only five points behind CdM heading into the 1,600 relay, could not

challenge the Sea Kings.

CdM’s 1,600 relay team of Morse, Cummins, Becky Cummins and Jaycee

Mahler, who ran seventh in the 300 low hurdles in 47.98, clinched the

team title with a winning time of 3:55.34. It was the Sea Kings’ fastest

mark this year and they advanced to the Masters as the sixth seed.

But what really allowed CdM to capture the team championship, matching

the school’s 1988 3-A crown, is that everybody contributed. The Sea Kings

scored all 60 of its points in nine events. Runner-up Notre Dame wound up

with 50.

CdM sophomore Allison Brawner made the Sea Kings’ first big mark with a

second-place finish in the high jump. Brawner reached 5-4 on her third

and final attempt to separate herself from a crowd of jumpers at 5-2. It

put her behind winner Sharon Day of Costa Mesa, but Brawner gave CdM

eight valuable team points.

Junior Diana Hossfeld put up the first points for CdM with a fourth-place

finish in the 1,600 (5:08.35). Five hours later, CdM’s title was all but

wrapped up when sophomore Season Meservey placed fourth in the 3,200 with

an 11:31.20, giving the Sea Kings a five-point lead over Santa Margarita

and a 16-point margin over Notre Dame.

“To win this over Santa Margarita, Mater Dei, Notre Dame, Atascadero and

other schools much bigger than us is really amazing,” Sumner said. “What

really won it for us is that everybody scored points. Liz didn’t do all

the work, because every kid contributed points. Season got four big

points, Allison got eight and Jenny got eight. Liz scored half of the

team points, but somebody had to step up and score the other half.”

On the boys side, CdM’s Josh Yelsey ran second in the 1,600 with a

personal record of 4:20.85. He finished ninth in the 800 with a 2:09.70.

“I was happy with what I posted (in the 1,600),” he said, “but I’m

disappointed about not making the Masters. I knew I had a way outside

chance with everybody running 4:05, but it was nice to run a 4:20.”

Costa Mesa senior Greg Stewart’s attempt at breaking the school record of

21.6 fell just short, but his time of 21.94 was a PR. He placed fourth,

improving on his sixth-place finish at last year’s finals.

“I had a nice meet,” he said. “I got a PR, but I didn’t beat the school

record, which is what I wanted. There is a feeling of accomplishment, but

at the same time, I’m two steps from being No. 1.”

Mesa senior Robert Hulliger placed fourth in the discus with a throw of

157-10. In the shot put, his heave of 54-4 1/4 earned him fifth place.

CdM senior Sean Fenton was ninth in the shot put (50-7 1/4) and he fouled

on all three throws in the the discus.

Mesa junior Rami Ghebrekidus continued to shave considerable time off his

PR in the 3,200. He placed fifth with a time of 9:32, a seven-second

improvement from his old PR at the CIF prelims.

Estancia senior Travis Chandler tied for eighth in the high jumpwith a

mark of 6-0.