Burnham Establishes Top Mark

If anyone questioned Angela Burnham’s health before the Alemany/Northridge Relays at Cal State Northridge on Saturday, their doubts quickly vanished--in 11.53 seconds.

That’s how long it took the Rio Mesa junior to blow away a good 100-meter field with the fastest high school time in the nation this year. The time would have been a personal best by more than two-tenths of a second but it was wind-aided.

The wind gauge read 3.7 meters per second during the 100, which exceeds the allowable 2.0 for record purposes.

“I was surprised it was that fast,” said Burnham, who won the 1986 state 100 title as a freshman but was plagued by leg injuries and illness during her sophomore season. “But it felt good. It felt real good.”

Rio Mesa Coach Brian FitzGerald was impressed with Burnham’s performance but frustrated by the trailing wind.

“She looked incredible,” he said. “I just wish the damn wind hadn’t kicked up. I hope it dies down for the 200. I’d like to see her run a great legal time.”

It did and she did.

Running in lane 5, Burnham blazed through the turn, then maintained her speed in the straightaway for a time of 24.16 seconds, the fastest high school clocking in the state this season. The wind reading was 0.0 meters per second.

“It’s kind of scary how fast she ran,” FitzGerald said. “We haven’t done any fast speed work yet. Everything’s been over-distance work, 200s, 300s and 400s. It’ll be interesting to see how fast she runs when we start tapering for meets.”

Burnham is not worrying about the big meets later this season. She is just glad to be healthy.

“The leg is fine,” she said, smiling shyly. “I didn’t have any problems with it today.”

Teammate Travis Cooksey did not have it as easy in the boys’ 800 meters. The defending Southern Section 4-A Division champion won with a season best of 1 minute, 55.71 seconds, but the victory was hard-fought.

After leading at the 400-meter mark in 55.1 seconds, Cooksey had to hold off Eric Smith (1:56.07) of Redlands and Antonio Carreno (1:56.45) of Fremont in the final straightaway. Rio Mesa teammate Scott Guerrero placed fifth with a personal best of 1:57.00.

“He’s a kid to keep your eye on,” FitzGerald said of Guerrero. “That’s only his second 800 of the year. He hasn’t learned to run this race yet.”

Poly Coach Scott King had the same sentiments about Shannon Haas after the Parrot senior won the 400 in 49.21.

“He’s still got a long ways to go,” King said. “He ran a stupid race. He was looking around in the first 100 meters. Then he decided that he belonged in the race.”

Haas took the lead at the 250-meter mark, then held off Curtis Harris of Long Beach Poly (49.62) and Marlon Singleton of Westchester (49.72).

Thousand Oaks won the boys’ four-mile and distance-medley relays in 18:08.03 and 10:35.78.

Though the Lancers trailed in the four-mile relay after Dan Jeanjaquet’s opening mile of 4:43.2, Paul McCarter gave the Lancers the lead with a 4:23.4 leg. Tim Farrell (4:35.3) and Mike Williamson (4:25.9) finished off the victory.

In the distance-medley relay, Williamson’s opening 1,200-meter leg of 3:13.5 gave Thousand Oaks a two-second lead, and it grew by race’s end. Mike Bogeyavac (50.5 for 400 meters), Dave Patterson (2:01.3 for 800) and McCarter (4:31.0 for 1,600) followed Williamson.

Andy Curran of Crespi, Mark Felan of Hart, Crissy Mills of Campbell Hall and Lisa Gill of Alemany all won field events.

Curran, Matt Warwick of Hesperia and Greg Sheets of Taft cleared 14-9 in the pole vault, but Curran won on the basis of fewer misses.

Felan won the discus (149-8), Mills won the high jump (5-8) and Gill took the triple jump (36-7).