Southern Section Track and Field Masters Meet : Mission Viejo’s Fager Wants to Surpass Any Barriers Still in Her Way

Lisa Fager of Mission Viejo High School stands 90 feet away from her launch site, staring down a narrow tartan runway.

In her mind’s eye she sees her run-up step for step. She sees her perfect running form, hair blowing in the wind, as she picks up speed.

She reaches her first mark and hops off her right foot, trying to propel her lean 5-foot-10 frame up and out, farther down the runway. She starts to head back to earth. She hits perfectly on her right heel for the skip , trying to keep her momentum going forward, always forward.

Now she bounds to her left foot, something she has done again and again in practice. Finally, the sand pit, her target, is in sight. One last jump and she flings herself into the pit.

In her mind’s eye, she has triple jumped 40 feet. It’s always the case. At least until she actually clears that elusive 40-foot barrier.

Then it will be a new target. Maybe 40-6 or 41 feet. For now it’s 40 feet. And it has been that way ever since Fager broke her last elusive goal with a jump of 39-11 1/2.

Fager, a junior, broke the Orange County girls’ triple-jump record with that leap at the county girls’ track and field championship in April. It was a mark that drove her--sometimes to distraction--ever since she jumped a personal best 39-4 at the same meet a year earlier. She went on to place seventh in the state meet.

She just had to better the record of 39-8 1/4, set by Debbie Orr of Ocean View in 1986.

She’ll try to again qualify for the state meet, and break the 40-foot barrier in the process, at the Masters Meet at 6:30 tonight at Cerritos College.

Fager also will be high jumping tonight. She won the 4-A title last week at the Southern Section championship meet with a jump of 5-4. Fager also hopes to qualify in the high jump, but it’s the triple jump that has her full attention.

She tried a number of events when she first tried track and field as an eighth grader competing for a Mission Viejo-based age-group club called Time Machine.

Fager played soccer and softball but neither held her interest. So she gave track and field a shot.

She tried the long jump. Nah .

High jump? Too nerve wracking.

Sprints? Uh, not fast enough.

Triple jump? She tried it and fell for it in a big way.

“The first time I did it I was doing it on the grass, getting my steps down,” Fager said. “And I tripped and fell on my face.”

She got up, brushed herself off and mastered the event not long after. She went 32-6 “or something like that” as an eighth grader and began to improve by leaps and bounds.

As a freshman at Mission Viejo, she qualified for the state meet, but did not advance to the final. That showed her potential in the event, though.

So she and John Hattrup, Mission Viejo’s jumps coach, worked diligently on improving her speed and perfecting her technique during the off-season.

“You look at who she’s jumping against and if it was just a race, she’d get beat every time,” Hattrup said.

But that hard work--including endless sessions of jumping over milk crates to improve her spring--has helped compensate for her lack of blazing speed on the runway.

Fager’s best last week was 39-7 1/2, good for second place in the 4-A behind Hesperia’s Krystal Kirkland, who jumped 39-11. Kirkland, and Walnut’s Juliana Yendork, who has the best jump in the nation this year (41-9 1/2), will be Fager’s toughest competition tonight.

They aren’t the only ones, however.

“She’s her toughest critic,” Hattrup said. “Sometimes she doesn’t understand that Bob Beamon (the world record holder in the long jump) didn’t jump 29 feet everyday. Forty feet, that’s all we hear about. If she doesn’t jump 40 feet it’s not a good jump.”

Masters Meet Notes

Tonight’s meet begins at 6:30. The top five finishers in each event qualify for the state meet next Friday and Saturday at Cerritos College. Here’s a look at some of the 44 Orange County athletes, not including relay team members, competing tonight.

Boys:

Sprints--Tim Martin, a sophomore from San Clemente, ran 10.61 in the 100 meters at the 4-A prelims, the third-fastest time ever by a county runner. Curtis Conway of Hawthorne, who won the 100 and 200 at the 4-A finals last week, is favored.

Distances--In the 800, Doug Nichols of Edison ran a personal best of 1:52.15 last week, the second-fastest qualifying mark. In the 1,600, Eddie Lavelle and Greg Shryock of Corona del Mar, Mike Nielsen of Mater Dei and Neil Stevenson of Capistrano Valley will compete. In the 3,200, Nielsen and Jimmy Rodriguez of Santa Ana Valley will challenge Bryan Dameworth of Agoura and Mike Williamson of Thousand Oaks.

Field events--Phouphet Singbandith of Magnolia competes in the long and triple jumps. Charles Cummings and Vince Chuck of Kennedy and Tony Robinson of San Clemente also are entered in the triple jump. In the pole vault, Eric Whitcomb of Valencia is the county’s top entrant. In the shotput, Esperanza’s Chuck Underwood won the 3-A title and has the third longest put among the qualifiers (56-9 1/4).

Girls:

Sprints--In the 400, Shelly Tochluk of Westminster and Don’yelle Norris, a freshman at Mission Viejo, qualified.

Distances--Shelley Taylor, a freshman at Edison, won the 4-A 800 and 1,600 last week. She won the 800 in 2:15.33 and the 1,600 in 5:05.10. Kim Toney of Atascadero has the fastest time going into the 800 (2:12.65). Karen Hecox of South Hills is fastest in the 1,600 (4:53.90).

Field events--In the high jump, Lori Svoboda of El Dorado went 5-10 to win the 3-A title last week and will be the favorite tonight. Beth Byron of Villa Park was second to Svoboda with a 5-5 jump. Lisa Fager of Mission Viejo won the 4-A in 5-4. Elizabeth Bauer of Foothill also cleared 5-4. In the long jump, Allison Franke of Canyon, Brenda Robinson of Santa Ana Valley, Allison Axtell of Mission Viejo and Melissa McDonald of Mater Dei are entered. In the shotput, Leslee Briggs of Edison, Bev Oden of Irvine and Kristen Dunn of Mission Viejo are entered.