Girls’ Track : Woodbridge Pulls Together to Win 2-A Championship

After nine hours of leaping, running, sprinting and throwing, the Woodbridge High School girls’ track and field team left the Southern Section championships Saturday evening without a single individual victory or record-breaking performance.

A sad day for Warrior fans?

Hardly. Woodbridge left the meet smiling--with the 2-A division title trophy hoisted high above their shoulders.

Relying on great depth, Woodbridge won its second consecutive girls’ 2-A title, scoring 61 points in front of 4,000 at Cerritos College.

The Warriors, who have finished in the top three for the past five years, were followed by St. Bernard with 51 points. Lompoc and Walnut tied for third at 44.

Along with Woodbridge, Orange County was well-represented by several individuals, including Canyon’s Allison Franke, who won the long jump and her second consecutive title in the triple jump, and Edison freshman Shelley Taylor, winner of the 4-A 800- and 1,600-meter runs.

But Woodbridge’s victory was a team project all the way.

“You can see we didn’t win anything as far as the events go,” Woodbridge Coach George Varvas said. “We got second five times, but we don’t have the studs like some teams. Our kids knew they had to perform under pressure today, and that’s what they did.”

Kaci Keffer was the only Woodbridge athlete to qualify for Friday’s Masters meet, also at Cerritos. Keffer finished second in the 3-A 300-meter hurdles in 44.89 seconds, the ninth-fastest time of nine qualifiers. Keffer also placed second in the 400 meters, and helped Woodbridge to a third-place finish in the 1,600 relay.

Woodbridge gained a big boost in the distance events with Cathi Peck (second in the 1,600, fourth in the 3,200), sister Laura Peck (third in the 1,600) and Amy Robles (second in 800, fifth in 1,600) contributing heavily.

Edison’s Taylor, in just her first year of track, provided two of the meet’s greatest surprises.

Taylor’s time in the 1,600--5:05.10, the fastest county time this season--ranks second on the all-time county freshman list. The leader? Three-time Olympian Mary Decker, who ran 4:40.4 as a freshman while at Orange High in 1973.

But Taylor was equally impressive in the 800, not so much for the time (2:15.33, a personal record by 4 seconds), but how she managed to scramble from near last to victory in the final 200 meters.

Taylor did so gradually at first, passing several fast-fading runners at the 600-meter mark. With about 100 meters to go, Taylor was in fifth place. But with a kick that highlighted her near-perfect mechanics, she caught and passed all four runners, including Capistrano Valley’s Laurinda Mulhaupt, who finished fourth, for the victory.

“I was very surprised, I didn’t think I had it in me,” Taylor said. “After the first lap, I started to doubt myself, but I just said ‘Now, Shelley, you can do it.’

“I think this is really the first time I’ve run to my potential, or close to it.”

Franke, a senior en route to Southern Methodist in the fall, won her second consecutive 3-A triple jump title with a leap of 38-feet. She won the 3-A long jump at 17-9 1/2, and placed second in her speciality, the discus, an event she has won twice before at this meet, at 153-7.

After an off-year in 1988, El Dorado senior Lori Svoboda won her third 3-A title in the high jump with a leap of 5-10. Svoboda, whose lifetime best is 5-10 3/4, made three attempts at 6-0, which would have tied the county record, but came close only on her third try, scraping the bar with her back on the way down.

In the 4-A high jump, Mission Viejo’s Lisa Fager won at 5-4. Fager also placed second in the triple jump at 39-7 1/2.

In the shot put, Santa Ana Valley’s Joanna Alo won the 3-A division with a mark of 39-2 1/2.

Notes

Other county athletes who qualified for the Masters meet include: Santa Ana Valley’s Brenda Robinson, Mission Viejo’s Allison Axtell and Mater Dei’s Melissa McDonald in the long jump; Mission Viejo in the 400 relay; Mission Viejo’s Don’yell Norris and Westminster’s Shelley Tochluk in the 400 (Tochluk ran a county season-leading 56.23); Mission Viejo’s Kristin Dunn, Edison’s Leslee Briggs and Irvine’s Bev Oden in the shotput; Villa Park’s Beth Byron, Mission Viejo’s Lisa Fager and Foothill’s Elizabeth Bauer in the high jump; Foothill’s Jannette Reed in the 800; El Toro’s Monica Fisher in the 300 hurdles; Fisher and Mission Viejo’s Fager in the triple jump; University’s Tanja Brix, San Clemente’s Terri Smythers and Katella’s Martha Pinto in the 3,200.