Heat and Glitches Create Confusion at Cross-Country Meet

The Southern Section cross-country preliminaries, traditionally one of the more uneventful competitions during the season, became a bit too eventful for many Friday at Mt. San Antonio College.

First, there was the hot, dry, smoggy conditions, which coupled with Mt. SAC’s hilly course, caused some 60 heat-stricken athletes to seek medical attention--and several more to drop out--though no serious problems were reported.

Then, there were upsets, particularly involving the Newport Harbor High School girls’ and the Corona del Mar boys’ teams.

Both are defending state champions in the medium schools division. But because both teams placed fifth in their heat--only the top four teams advance to next Saturday’s Southern Section finals--they will not compete in the section finals or the state meet at Fresno.

And finally, there was trouble with the official results, because of a computer glitch. After discovering several errors in the computerized race results, Dean Crowley of the Southern Section gathered with reporters, apologized and said: “As of right now, all the official results are unofficial . . . They’re not totally inaccurate, but inaccurate. It was a computer snag, a total computer snag.”

Crowley said Southern Section officials plan to work through the weekend to rectify the situation, and plan on Monday to mail out full, corrected results to all Southern Section cross-coaches. Until then, though, Crowley said he believes the “quick scores”--the immediate calculations done as runners finish each race--to be at least “90% accurate.”

Based on quick scores, then, Orange County teams fared reasonably well. Most notable in the girls’ division was Woodbridge, the county’s top-ranked team, which had little trouble winning its heat in the 2-A division. In the boys’ division, defending 4-A champion Dana Hills, unranked most of the year, placed third in its heat to advance. San Clemente, ranked second to Saddleback most of the season, outran Saddleback to win its 4-A heat.

Southern Section Notes

Other county teams to qualify, based on quick scores, are, in boys: Villa Park, Santa Ana, Dana Hills, Fountain Valley in the 4-A; Woodbridge and Laguna Beach in 2-A; Whittier Christian and Santa Margarita in 1-A. In girls: San Clemente, El Modena, El Toro, Corona del Mar, Tustin and Capistrano Valley in 4-A; La Habra in 3-A; Woodbridge and Orange in 2-A, and Santa Margarita in 1-A. Shelley Taylor of Edison, Susannah Thrasher of Villa Park, Tanja Brix of University and Mark Gonzalez of La Habra are those who qualified for next week’s final as individuals.