Mt. San Antonio College Relays : Pomona’s Vickers Is Back, Wins 3 Events

Friday night, Janeene Vickers, one of the top high school track runners in the country, was receiving an hour-long acupuncture treatment, 12 needles in all, hoping to heal a persistent groin injury that has bothered her for months.

Saturday afternoon, in her first high-level outdoor competition of 1987, the Pomona High School senior won three of the four events she entered in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays at Walnut.

Her wins included a hand-timed 42.3 seconds in the 300-meter low hurdles, the fastest time in the nation this year.

She also took the 100 meters in a wind-aided 11.89, despite not having any speed workouts for about five weeks, and the 200 in 24.17. Her only non-winning event was the 400 relay, where she anchored Pomona to a fifth-place finish in 48.64, about two seconds behind the winner, San Diego Morse. Pomona was in fifth place when Vickers got the baton.

“I think they realize I’m back,” said Vickers, who won two state titles last season.

Before Saturday, Vickers had run in only seven races this season outdoors, three of which came Thursday in a dual meet against Chaffey.

“I didn’t come to break any records,” Vickers said. “I only came to see if I was over the injury.”

After the relay, her final race of the day, she pronounced herself 95% fit, with the Baseline League preliminaries two weeks away. Even if she’s not at full strength by then, Saturday’s showing proved that a sub-standard Janeene Vickers is still better than most.

“I can tell my body is not used to it yet,” she said. “My stomach muscles hurt.

“But to come out and run, it was elation. . . . Under the circumstances, I got the best I could get.”

In the boys’ competition, Dana Hall of Pomona Ganesha won two solo races--the 110-meter high hurdles in 14.34 and the 300 intermediate hurdles in a hand-timed 38.1--and anchored the team of Donya Cobbs, Paul Bonner and Aaron Brown to a victory in the shuttle hurdle relay with a time of 1:00.47, making him one of the standouts of the meet. But his times in the individual events were far off his state-leading times of 13.6 and 37.53, respectively.

“I’m disappointed,” Hall said. “I got out of the blocks slow (in the 110 highs). I wasn’t expecting to start slow because I’ve been practicing all week. Then, I got to the fourth hurdle and saw someone coming up on one of the inside lanes (Mark Crear of Rowland), and I started to press too hard and hit the next three hurdles. But I still got him by about a half a hurdle.”

Meanwhile, Kamy Keshimiri of Reno, who set the national discus record of 224-3 two weeks ago, put together an amazing series to win with a 224-1, the second-best mark ever. The first attempt went 198-11 and he then strung together 222-0, 224-1, foul, 217-8 and 222-9, meaning even his worst throw would have beaten second-place finisher Dave Bultman of Simi Valley Royal by 6 feet 10 inches.