McAllister, Joubert Stop the Clock : Despite Both Finishing 880 in 2:19.5, Locke Girl Declared Winner

It didn’t take a track expert to predict that the girls 880-yard race in the high school section of Friday’s 28th Annual Sunkist Invitational Indoor track meet was going to be close between Desiree Joubert of Westlake and Kim McAllister of Locke.

These two have been going shoulder to shoulder for four years.

But when the pair hit the tape Friday night, it took more than a stopwatch to tell who had won.

Both were officially clocked at 2:19.5. McAllister, however, was determined the winner by about seven or eight inches.

Third at 2:19.8 was Sharon Manship of Thousand Oaks High.

“I didn’t really expect to run that well because I’ve been playing soccer,” said Joubert, a junior at Westlake. “I’ve only been able to work out about 20 minutes a day.”

It appeared for an instant Friday as if that might be enough.

With one lap to go, Manship moved into second behind McAllister, who led from start to finsh. But Joubert regained the No. 2 position with 50 yards remaining and then nearly closed the distance.

“When I first came off the curve,” Joubert said, “I thought I could get second, but it wasn’t until the last 20 yards that I thought I might be able to catch Kim.

“I always know, when Kim is in the race, the pace will be fast and I’ll have to run hard to beat her.

“I just feel more comfortable running behind the leaders. In the past, I’ve tried running from the front, but I always seem to go out too fast. When I run in the pack, I seem to pace myself better and I have more left at the end.”

It was Joubert who had the most left at the end last April in the 800 meters at the Pasadena Games at Occidental College, beating McAllister by a couple of hundredths of a second. A week later at the Arcadia Invitational, McAllister finished second, Joubert fourth in a tightly bunched field.

Joubert’s best at 800 meters is 2:09.62, good for third in last spring’s state meet.

Melissa Sutton of Newbury Park was another Valley area runner who took a second Friday night, but she saw it as a cause for celebration.

Sutton finished the girls two-mile in 10:37.8, behind Tracey Williams (10:35.7) of Mountain View.

Christy Farrell of Thousand Oaks was fourth at 11:01.7

“I’m very happy,” Sutton said. “This race is a big confidence booster. I needed to run well again after having run so poorly at the Kinney Nationals.”

Sutton finished 23rd in the Kinney National cross-country championships in San Diego last month after placing second in the West Regionals in Fresno. Her showing in the regional competition and her three straight Southern Section 4A championships had left her favored to place among the top five in the national competition.

Said her high school coach, Mike Stewart, of Friday night’s event: “Before the race, I thought a time of 11 minutes would be good. Melissa hasn’t been running that much because she’s been playing soccer, so her time is very satisfying.”

It may have been on the soccer field that Sutton received the injury on her right hip that has been bothering her lately. She’s not sure where she got it, but she wouldn’t use the injury as an excuse for failing to catch Williams Friday.

“Tracey usually goes out very fast. Tonight, I wanted to try and catch her in the last three laps, but she was very strong at the end.”

Brian Theriot of the Adidas Track Club finished third in the men’s 1,000-yard run (2:08.6), Dave Kenworthy of the Stars and Stripes Track Club placed fourth in the pole vault at 17-4 1/2 and Rose Monday of the Santa Monica Track Club was fourth in the women’s 880 in 2:06.74.

Theriot attended Notre Dame High, Kenworthy wentto Crespi while Monday was a student at Cal State Northridge.

In other high school distance events, Heather Scobie of Saugus, the Southern Section 3-A cross-country runnerup last season, finished third in the girls mile in 5:11.6. Agoura freshman Bryan Dameworth, the third-place finisher in the 1986 Southern Section 2-A cross-country championships, placed fourth in the two-mile Friday, running a 9:32.3

John Ortega of The Times contributed to this story.