Junior College TRACK : El Camino Too Much in Prelims

Despite L.A. Valley winning the women’s title at the Mountain Valley Conference meet and Moorpark finishing a close second to Taft in the Western State Conference, neither coach expected to seriously challenge El Camino for the Southern California Womens Track and Field championship.

Each school has a few strong individuals plus plenty of depth capable of scoring points at the conference level, but that isn’t good enough at the regional level.

That was confirmed Friday at the Southern Cal Prelims at Santa Monica College, where athletes needed to finish in the top 12 in field events or top nine in running events to qualify for the Southern California Championships on May 11 at Bakersfield.

Sally Bolda of Moorpark, who won the WSC javelin with a toss of 113-7,improved to 128-0 to rank third among qualifiers. Teammate Sherry Rutter also qualified in the javelin, 12th, with a 111-10.

Terri Davidson of Moorpark, the WSC champion in the long jump and triple jump, advanced in both events with a 17-8 3/4 (seventh) and a 36-1 (fourth) in the triple jump. Carla Gasman of Glendale was the 12th qualifer in the long jump (16-5 3/4) and triple jump (33-9 3/4).

Nicole Abernathy of Glendale was one of five high jumpers who qualified at 5-4.

Two runners and a relay team from the Valley qualified. Kim Stewart was third in her heat of the 1,500 meters in 4:41.18 and Felicia Skaggs was third in her heat of the 400 meters in 60.04. The relay team of LaTonda Hardy, Trudy Johnson, Skaggs, and Jennifer Wooten was second in its heat with a 49.53.

Gretchen Lohr, the MVC cross country champion, placed third in the 5,000-meter final to advance to the state championship May 18 in Modesto.

Moorpark’s only bright spot on the track was the 4 x 400-meter relay in which Tracy Edwards (61.9), Karin Cartwood (60.0), Davidson (59.3), and Susan Borup (59.5) ran 4:01.27 for the third and last qualifying spot in their heat.