Burnham Upstaged Twice at Northridge

There is an adage that holds that getting to the top is often easier than staying there. Angela Burnham of Rio Mesa High, the top-ranked sprinter in the country by Track and Field News magazine last year, probably would agree with that maxim after losing twice at the Northridge-Alemany Relays at Cal State Northridge on Saturday.

Burnham, the defending state champion in the 100 and 200 meters, was defeated by Muir junior Inger Miller in the 100 and Bakersfield freshman Janile Nichols in the 200, doubling the number of defeats she suffered in high school competition last season.

Burnham took the surprising losses in stride.

“This is just another meet,” she said. “I knew the 100 was going to be close either way. I wasn’t surprised I got beat. . . . And when I came off the turn in the 200 and saw her (Nichols) out ahead of me, I just decided not to strain myself.”

Miller defeated Burnham, 11.70 to 11.74, in the 100, and Nichols ran 24.75 in the 200, ahead of Burnham’s hand-timed 25.2.

Burnham’s loss in the 100 came against a known quantity in Miller, the runner-up in the 100 at the state championships last year who has run a hand-timed 11.6 seconds this season.

But the loss in the 200 was a bit surprising in that Burnham lacked her characteristic strong finish, instead easing up in the final 30 meters.

Burnham, who won both events at the Northridge meet last season, anchored the Rio Mesa 400-meter relay team to a fourth-place finish (48.1) behind Muir (46.7), Hawthorne (46.8) and Bakersfield (47.9) earlier in the day.

“My best race of the day,” she said. “I felt good in that one.”

Jeff Ingalls of Agoura felt he could have won after finishing second in both the 200 and 400, the latter in a personal best of 48.66, just .01 behind Tony Borquez of Alemany.

Borquez, who placed eighth in the 400 in last year’s state championships, held a five-meter lead as he entered the final stretch, but Ingalls pulled even with 20 meters left before losing by inches.

“I really thought I had him with 50 meters to go,” Ingalls said of Borquez. “But he held me off. He’s a strong runner and he proved it at the end today.”

Ingalls, whose previous best in the 400 was 49.61, clocked 22.45 in the 200. Hawthorne sophomore Erik Allen won the event in 21.97.

Bryan Dameworth of Agoura won the 3,000 meters in 8:37.43 after finishing second in the 1,500 (3:59.0).

Dameworth, the two-time defending state Division I cross-country champion, pulled away from Thousand Oaks’ Mike Williamson (8:42.35) in the final lap of the 3,000, but he was unable to hold off Palos Verdes’ Blake Boggess (3:58.22) in the final 100 of the 1,500.

Williamson, second to Dameworth in the 1988 state cross-country championships, ran a 4:16.7 mile on the anchor leg of the four-mile relay as Thousand Oaks (18:28.80) placed third behind Dos Pueblos (18:18.38) and Canyon (18:28.20).

Crissy Mills of Campbell Hall, the defending state champion in the high jump, cleared a meet-best 5-8 but was disqualified for competing in cycling shorts.