Serra’s Patrick Jumps Into New Season With National Record on Mind

The defending state girls’ high jump champion stood at the north end of newly resurfaced Glenn Broderick Stadium and contemplated her final attempt at 5-feet 8-inches.

It’s not that 5-8 is much of a milestone for Serra High junior Lynn Patrick, who won the state title last season as a sophomore with a jump of 5-10. But it was her goal for Saturday’s 11th annual Tiger Relays.

Patrick began practicing for the high jump only nine days ago. She injured her left ankle recently during a volleyball match and is still receiving therapy for it.

“I only was jumping 5-2 this whole week,” she said. “I was getting kind of nervous.”

Her final attempt at 5-8 was her 15th jump of the day. Patrick stared at the track surface to gain her concentration. She tugged on her brown-and-yellow Serra jersey, as she did on each jump, began rocking back and forth to get her rhythm, then started striding out, loping toward the bar. She leaned into it with her right shoulder and jumped up and out, backward, arching her back. As she kicked up her legs in a final motion to get clear, one of them grazed the bar, and it fell.

It was the end of her day but the beginning of a new season.

It’s a season in which Patrick doesn’t think in terms of the San Diego Section’s 10-year-old record of 5-10, held by Carlsbad’s Sue McNeal, but of the national record of 6-2 3/4, set by Clovis Sanger’s Latrese Johnson in 1985.

Patrick’s state-winning height last season was third-best in the nation.

“My goal at the end of the year last year was 5-10,” said Patrick, who jumped 5-4 as a freshman. “This year I just feel like I have to prove something. I’m really kind of scared. I think I’ll start getting used to it again when I get 5-10. Then I’ll feel good.”

A year ago, Patrick’s biggest challenger was Poway’s Christy Kurras. Nothing has changed. Kurras, who jumped 5-7 last year as a freshman, went only 5-3 Saturday. Patrick said she will do much better.

“This year she is going to really jump high,” Patrick said.

Other individual winners in the relay-dominated girls’ meet were Morse High triple jumper Stacy Thompson (37-2), Madison shotputter Jennifer Viavia (36-9), Orange Glen discus thrower Laura Hughes (114-10), Sorii Epps of Patrick Henry in the long jump (16-10 1/2) and Kristi Bache of University of San Diego High in the 2-mile run (10:53.7).

Bache pulled away in the second lap and defeated runner-up Shamen Dugger of Coronado by nearly a minute. She said she wanted to get a good time under 11 minutes so she put the 2-mile behind her and concentrate on the mile and 800 meters. Bache was the section’s No. 2 800-meter runner last year.

The Morse 400-meter relay team has won the section title the past nine seasons and last year ran a national best of 46.89 and finished second in the state.

Only Nicola Stennis is back, but the Tigers, with Stennis anchoring, ran 50.0 to edge Esperanza. Serra, which defeated Crawford in another heat, had the day’s third-best time of 50.4. Crawford was running without anchor Onnie Ferguson, who was taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test.