Tardy Entry Forms Sideline Watts, Bridgewater

More than 1,500 athletes from 25 states are expected to compete in The Athletics Congress National Youth track and field championships at Mt. San Antonio College this week, but Quincy Watts and Bryan Bridgewater will not be among them because their entry forms were not received on time.

According to meet director Ron Axtell, entry applications for the Win America Track and Athletics Club, of which Watts and Bridgewater are members, were received four days after the deadline and without the required registration fee.

“Hilliard Sumner called me Friday and he said he already mailed it and it got lost by express mail,” Axtell said Tuesday. “He was begging to get in. But I don’t take any excuses because coaches have all types of excuses for everything they do. You have to run a meet cleanly.

“I had to use the same standards for all the athletes across the nation,” Axtell added. “I would be still be at the computer entering names if I allowed late entries like his into the meet.”

Bridgewater and Watts staged some classic sprint duals during their senior seasons at Washington and Taft highs.

Bridgewater defeated Watts for this year’s City Section and state titles in the 200 meters, but Watts turned the tables on his rival in recent weeks, defeating Bridgewater in both the 100 and 200 at the TAC junior championships in Tallahassee, Fla., last week.

Heather Burroughs of Kansas City, Mo., set a national age-group record to win the midget (for athletes born in 1976 and ‘77) girls’ 3,000 meters Wednesday.

Burroughs’ 10:03.03 crushed the previous record of 10:10.1 set by Miesha Marzell of Reno, Nev., last year. Carrie Garritson placed second in 10:17.1 and Amy Skieresz of the Las Virgenes Track Club placed third.