Joyner and Devers Outrun USC Women; UCLA Men Win, Too

Fred LaPlante, USC’s women’s track coach, said earlier in the week that Saturday’s meet with UCLA would be basically his team against Jackie Joyner.

He was half right.

Joyner, the silver medalist in the Olympic heptathlon, competed in six events and scored significantly in each one at Drake Stadium.

Her teammate, freshman Gail Devers, was almost as active and just as spectacular. She appeared in five events, winning the 100-meter hurdles and 100, placing second in the long jump and running legs on UCLA’s winning 400- and 1,600-meter relay teams.

So it was a two-woman show for the Bruins as they easily beat the Trojans, 89-43.

Joyner won only one event, not counting relays, but she leaped 22 feet 11 inches in the long jump, a collegiate record and the second-best jump ever by an American woman. Jodi Anderson is the U.S. record-holder at 22-11 3/4.

UCLA’s men’s team concluded a perfect dual meet season (9-0) by beating USC, 89-73, but the meet was much closer than anticipated. Although the Bruins were in no apparent danger of losing, they didn’t clinch the meet until the next-to-last event, the 5,000 meters.

It was the first time that women and men from both schools competed together in a double dual and there were some outstanding performances before a crowd of approximately 4,700. A sampling:

--USC sprinter Darwin Cook, who has been trying to improve on his best 100 time of 10.20 that he recorded as a freshman, finally did it in his senior season. Cook won the 100 in the fine time of 10.14, third best time in the world this year.

--Devers, from National City, won the women’s 100 in 11.19, equaling the best time by an American woman sprinter in 1985. She was embraced and wrestled to the ground by her coach, Bob Kersee, after that performance. Her winning time in the 100-meter hurdles was 13.18, one hundredth of a second ahead of Joyner and a mark that puts her among the world leaders.

--USC’s Antonio Manning, who has been bothered by groin and leg injuries this season, won the 200 in 20.41--equaling the third best time in the world this year.

Cook pressured Manning and finished second in the personal best time of 20.43. They were running into a 1.2 m.p.s. headwind.

Although the men’s meet didn’t produce as many world class marks as it has in the past, it was more competitive than it has been in recent years and an indication of better meets ahead.

“I hope today’s meet whet the appetite for fans in the future,” said Bob Larsen, the UCLA men’s coach. “Remember, both schools were missing some of their best people because of injuries.”

USC Coach Ernie Bullard, whose team finished the dual meet season with a 6-2 record, was proud of his team.

“We got 15 or 20 more points than I thought we’d get,” he said. “It was our best competitive effort of the year.”

It’s traditional in a UCLA-USC meet for athletes to achieve season or lifetime best performances. Such was the case Saturday on a warm, clear day.

Joyner was a tired, but happy athlete at the conclusion of the meet. She sat on a training table with ice packs strapped to both thighs.

She had to work a bit harder in the jumping events than she expected, but she liked the arduous routine.

“I get a kick out of it,” she said of her iron-woman performance. “I don’t like to sit around. I like to bounce from one event to the other.”

She was doing a lot of bouncing.

The meet began at 11 a.m. and before noon Joyner had already competed in the high jump and javelin.

She took only one throw in the javelin, recording a mark of 157 feet 5 inches for second place. But she had to work hard in the high jump.

Joyner took nine jumps, and equaled the winning height of 5-11 1/2. But USC’s Wendy Brown made 5-11 1/2 on her first jump while Joyner cleared it on her third attempt. So Brown was declared the winner.

But Joyner was just warming up for the afternoon.

She ran a leg on UCLA’s 400-meter relay, almost beat her teammate, Devers, in the 100-meter hurdles, got off her big jump in the long jump and was still strong enough to run away from USC’s Donna Curtis on the third leg of the 1,600 relay.

Joyner, two-time NCAA heptathlete champion, said that she and Kersee had worked to improve her approach in the long jump by accelerating faster during a certain portion of her run.

Cook has been fighting a problem of faltering in the last 20 meters of the 100. He had been dropping his arms and losing his form, but he had it all together Saturday.

But he didn’t have any notion that he had run so fast.

“I straightened up near the end of the race and I didn’t lean,” he said. “I was happy that I won but I didn’t think I was under 10.20. I didn’t react to the gun.”

Now that Cook has finally broken through his personal time barrier, he wants to stay in the 10.1 seconds range. If he does, he’ll be in world-class company.

“It was a big psychological boost,” Cook said.

Track Notes UCLA’s Dwyan Biggers pulled up at the start of the 400 with a chronic ankle injury. USC’s Asa Aarons pulled a leg muscle on the backstretch of the same race. . . . Other commendable performances: USC’s John Wolitarsky won the hammer throw with a personal best throw of 225-10, while Bill Green, a guest competitor, got off a throw of 248-6 and UCLA’s John Frazier and Jim Banich had personal best marks of 65-2 3/4 and 192-0 in the shotput and discus, respectively...The USC men scored upsets in the javelin and high jump and swept the pole vault to make the meet more competitive. After 17 events, UCLA had a 78-70 lead. But the Trojans had run out of bodies at that point as the Bruins went 1-3 in the 5,000 with the only USC entry, Romney Mawhorter, getting second. Then, UCLA easily won the 1,600 relay, the concluding event. “I had a general plan of 90 points and I had an eye on where we were through the entire meet,” Larsen said. “But USC performed extremely well and Ernie Bullard got a lot out of his team.” . . . It wouldn’t be surprising, though, if USC finished ahead of UCLA in the Pac-10 meet May 17-18. The Trojans may have more quality-type points that would hold up in such a meet.