Southern Section Track and Field : Hawthorne Tops Its State Relay Record

The Hawthorne High School boys’ 400-meter relay team fell short of its goal of setting a national record, but for the second time within a week the Cougars broke the state record in the Masters track meet at Cerritos College Friday night.

Hawthorne’s time was 40.25, breaking the school’s six-day-old state record of 40.36, set last Saturday in the Southern Section 4-A Division finals.

Despite his relay time, Cougar Coach Kye Courtney says that there is room for improvement.

“We will break the record next week in the heats because tonight we had a bad exchange between Curtis (Conway) and Erik (Allen),” said Courtney, whose Cougars ran faster than USC did in winning last week’s 400-meter relay in the Pacific 10 Conference meet.

The top five finishers in each event Friday night qualified for next weekend’s State meet.

Hawthorne finished with nine event qualifiers overall, led by Conway, who won the 100 (10.66) and 200 meters (21.04) in addition to anchoring both relay teams to victories. The Cougars won the 1,600-meter relay in 3:13.43, with Conway running a 45.8 come-from-behind anchor split.

Coley Candaele of Carpinteria was the only other boys’ double individual winner, winning the 800 (1:51.58) and 1,600 meters (4:10.54).

Angela Burnham of Oxnard Rio Mesa, the defending girls’ 100 and 200-meters state champion, proved to be too strong for Pasadena Muir’s Inger Miller in winning the 100 and 200 meters.

Burnham, a senior, pulled away from Miller, a junior, down the stretch in both races to win in times of 11.52 in the 100 and 23.49 in the 200 meters. Both are the fastest times in the nation by a girl this season.

Miller had a night of second-place finishes. Along with her sprint runner-up finishes (11.53 in the 100 and 23.84 in the 200 meters), she anchored the Mustangs to two seconds in relays.

In the girls’ 400 relay, Hawthorne defeated Muir in a photo finish. Both teams were timed in 46.46.

In the 1,600-meter relay, Rio Mesa won, 3:48.66 to 3:48.93.