State Prep Track and Field Championships : Washington, With Bridgewater, Gets Off Fast

Northern California hopes that the State boys’ track title could be wrestled away from the South, where it has ended up 6 straight years and 10 of the past 12, faded into the night Friday.

Independence High School of San Jose, which came into the 70th California Interscholastic Federation/Reebok meet as the favorite, suffered two setbacks on the first of the two-day competition at Cerritos College. The 76ers did a good job of 86ing themselves by failing to qualify in the 400-meter relay and getting disqualified in the 1,600 relay when the leadoff runner went out of his lane on the back turn.

Who could take advantage of it?

Bryan Bridgewater and Washington of Los Angeles, to the surprise of no one.

Bridgewater won his heats in the 100 and the 200, the latter with his second sub-21.00 time in three weeks, and anchored the Generals to victory in both relays. Hawthorne, with Curtis Conway and Travis Hannah leading the way, is also in the picture.

Beyond Bridgewater, who ran 20.90 in the 200, the top individual performances came in the field events, on two fronts:

--Tyrone Scott from Mesa Verde of Citrus Heights went 50-6 in the triple jump, equaling the second-best mark outdoors in the nation this year. Damon Carson from San Diego High went 50-5 1/2 to finish as the second qualifier. A senior, he had done no better in 1988 than 46-11 3/4 as of late May.

--Kaleaph Carter from Edison of Huntington Beach led the shotput qualifiers by going 64-0 1/2, the No. 4 mark this year.

Quincy Watts of Woodland Hills Taft decided to drop the 400, where he has the No. 1 time in the state (46.67), to concentrate on the 200, not to mention that he never really liked the event in the first place.

As a result, there is a possibility that the top-ranked sprinter in the country in 1987 by Track & Field News might not win a State title as a senior. On the other hand, if Watts does win the 200 today, avenging the defeat to Bridgewater at last week’s City final, he will become the second one to take three straight California titles the event. Eddie Morris of Huntington Beach did it from 1938-40.

Watts, who also won the 100 last season but decided not to run that event long ago because of the extra strain it puts on his previously injured hamstring, is down to the 200 and the 400 relay, and barely at that. Taft was the ninth--and final--qualifier in the relay. Watts time in the 200 was 21.00.

The meet, mired in problems last year in Sacramento, had only one snafu Friday. The four heats in the girls’ 300 intermediate hurdles will be re-run today at 10 a.m. because the seventh flight was misplaced by five meters.

The stadium will open at 9 a.m. for that race and cleared again after. The regular schedule begins with field event finals at 5 p.m. and running events at 6.

Prep Notes

Noticeably absent from the meet: Ian Alsen of Granada Hills, a solid bet to win two distance titles, because of grades; Ron Copeland, because of a leg injury; John Montgomery of Independence of San Jose, who became the favorite to win the high hurdles after Copeland went out, after false starting in the Central Coast Section final; Crystal Irving of Long Beach Poly, the two-time runner-up in the State in the 400, because of a leg injury suffered last week during the Masters meet; the Hawthorne and Pasadena Muir 400 relay teams, Hawthorne having false started in the Ocean League finals and Muir, the defending State champion, failing to qualify for the first time in the 1980s; and Matt Warwick of Hesperia, who has the No. 1 pole vault mark in the country at 17-0 3/4, after no-heighting at the Southern Section finals.

Hesperia qualified two runners for the final in the girls’ 1,600, Robbyn Bryant and Nicole Robbins. Bryant finished second in the event last year to Kira Jorgensen of Rancho Buena Vista from the San Diego Section, who also will be running tonight. . . . Tom Parker of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, who finished second in the State in the pole vault last season, no-heighted at 14-8.