State Meet 100 Meters Suddenly Has Turned Into Three-Man Race

The problem in trying to build a rivalry between the two best high school sprinters in California is that neither wants it.

For one thing, they’re good friends. For another, the younger of the pair will be the clear favorite any time 10 1/2 seconds separates the starting blocks from the finish line, though both runners have impressive credentials.

Still, the 100-meter dash, with junior Quincy Watts of Woodland Hills Taft and senior Corey Ealy of Pasadena Muir, has developed into one of the most interesting events of the state track finals this Friday and Saturday at Sacramento, considering events of the last two weeks and the addition of a not-so-familiar San Francisco runner.

In recent weeks:

May 16--Watts, competing in the open division of the Pepsi Invitational at UCLA, ran a 10.36, the best prep mark in the country for 1987.

May 23--Ealy equaled the 10.36 in winning the Southern Section 4-A title, capping an outstanding day in leading Muir to the team championship.

May 29--Tony Miller of San Francisco Riordan, last seen in Southern California finishing third at the Arcadia Invitational April 11, ran 10.41 in a meet at San Jose Independence.

May 30--Watts lowered his time to 10.17 in a wind-aided race during the City finals. The same day, he ran 20.69 in the 200, giving him the No. 1 marks in the country in two events.

Clearly, Watts is the one to beat in Sacramento, after winning the 200 and finishing second in the state 100 last season at Cerritos College. Even Ealy admits as much. But from a credibility standpoint, the 100 has picked up plenty of speed lately.

The high-flying Corey Ealy?

Figuratively, yes, but, please, not literally.

Ealy is afraid of flying and will probably join some of the Muir rooters in driving to Sacramento.

J.R. Phillips didn’t need this type of year for La Puente Bishop Amat’s baseball team to prove his worth as an athlete. After all, he was a quarterback on the Lancer football which finished with an 11-1 record and, though not a full-time member of the track team, ran a leg on the meet-winning mile relay against Montclair.

Just the same, a 13-1 pitching record did wonders for defining his role on the baseball team. Anything had to be better than last season, when he was 0-1 with all of four innings of work as a sophomore.

“He was a pain,” Coach Glenn Martinez recalled last week. “Because he wasn’t playing and he had to find something to do, he threw baseballs at us in the dugout when we weren’t looking. During batting practice, he was so wild that he would hit guys. We couldn’t even use him for batting practice.”

Something must have changed for Phillips, but Martinez can’t figure out what.

“He’s still no Rhodes scholar and he’s still no hero,” Martinez said. “But put him on a football field or a baseball field and let him play, and he’s an angel.”

Phillips was, indeed, heavenly this season. He took a 13-0 record, a 1.92 earned-run average and a .518 batting average into the Southern Section 4-A quarterfinal game last Friday, when he finally lost to Lakewood, 7-0.

Bishop Amat is the only seeded 4-A team to have been eliminated as the playoffs move into the semifinal round today with Lakewood playing No. 2 Placentia El Dorado at Valencia of Placentia and No. 1 Anaheim Esperanza traveling to Cal State Los Angeles to meet No. 3 Arcadia.

And besides Esperanza, Montclair Prep of Van Nuys from the Small Schools large division is the only top-seeded team remaining. The Mounties, in the final season under successful Coach Jeff Pressman, will play Tehachapi at College of the Canyons.

Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley, which meets Arroyo in a 2-A game at Cal Poly Pomona, will be without Coach Bob Zamora for the rest of the playoffs. An unspecified school turned him in for using some Cougar players on a semi-pro team on Sundays, which violates California Interscholastic Federation rules.

Meanwhile, the City is in much calmer states, with the non-Valley teams having been dispatched from the 4-A playoffs according to tradition and the two top ranked teams, Canoga Park in 4-A and Venice in 3-A, still in contention. Canoga Park plays Sylmar today at Cal State Northridge and Venice meets Belmont at West Los Angeles College.

The Southern Section girls’ softball tournament also enters the semifinals today. Diamond Bar and Whittier La Serna have the most unenviable tasks, at least at the plate. Diamond Bar will face Michele Granger, who holds several Southern Section pitching records, and her Placentia Valencia team in a 3-A game at Walnut High, while in a 2-A game at La Mirada, La Serna gets Irvine Woodbridge and Tiffany Boyd, who has thrown four consecutive no-hitters, including a 17-strikeout effort last Friday against Canyon Country Canyon.

Prep Notes

Two Northern California track marks of interest from recent weeks: Brent Burns of Lafayette Acalanes pole vaulted 17-5 1/2 to increase his own national lead and Tim Prince of Union City Logan, a junior, high jumped 7 feet to become the state leader. Both will be at Sacramento this weekend. . . . The City boys’ team tennis playoffs will open today, with Palisades the top-seeded team in 4-A and San Pedro No. 1 in the 3-A. The championship for both will be June 9. . . . Ron Reclusado, formerly of Covina Royal Oak and Baldwin Park Sierra Vista, has been named football coach at Chino Don Lugo. . . . Tim Williams of Playa del Rey St. Bernard and Mike Arthur of Templeton each hit his 14th home run of the season last Friday, two shy of the Southern Section single-season record. Neal Peek, a former coach at Costa Mesa, Paramount Brethren and defunct Norwalk Excelsior, has been named basketball coach at Costa Mesa.