EMPIRE LEAGUE MEET : Esperanza Gives Coach Plenty of New Material

Al Britt, Esperanza High School coach, often jokes about his boys’ and girls’ track and field teams.

With his usual dry humor, Britt often laments how certain members of his team could take practice a bit more seriously--or at least show up on a regular basis. And at least three or four times a season, Britt tends to joke that this year will certainly be his last as a high school coach.

Of course, one’s sense of humor generally improves with success. And for Britt, whose teams cruised to easy victories at the Empire League track and field championships Thursday at Rancho Santiago College, he can continue to chuckle.

The Esperanza boys’ team won its fourth consecutive league title with 197 points. Los Alamitos was second with 110. The Aztec girls won their 10th consecutive league championship, scoring 149 points, 26 points ahead of second-place Los Alamitos.

“One-hundred ninety seven points? Geez, you’re kidding,” Britt said. “That’s more than 33% of the total points possible. With the boys, I kept waiting. We’ve been kind of asleep for the last three weeks. But we’re a big-meet team. I think they wake up, realize what day it is and get psyched.”

No one symbolized that more than Esperanza pole vaulter Trevor Lycett. He had not practiced in the last five days, but managed to break the meet and his school record with a leap of 14-feet 7 1/4-inches.

Just as interesting, though, was why Lycett missed practice. Vaulting at a dual meet against Cypress last week, Lycett hit the crossbar on his way down, chipping in half one of his front teeth. After a root canal Tuesday and a tooth capping Thursday, Lycett came back to compete Thursday. Only this time, after clearing 14-6, he landed on the pit, knocking the cap off the same tooth.

In the boys’ competition, Esperanza received a big boost from double victories by Mark Parlin and Clayton Tharrington.

Parlin won the shotput at 61-4--the second-best mark in the state this season--breaking the meet mark of 57-1 3/4 set in 1977 by Katella’s Steve DeForrest. Parlin also won the discus at 173-8, breaking the mark of 170-4 set by Dave Sommers of Katella in 1977.

Tharrington won the long jump (21-6) and broke the meet record in the triple jump with a leap of 48-0 1/2, erasing the record of 46-9 set by Cypress’ Blaise Bryant in 1987.

In the girls’ portion, Esperanza’s Sherrie Buente won the 100 (12.80) and 200 meters (25.76), and teammate Nikki Jackson won the 100 hurdles (14.79) and 300 hurdles (45.18).

Esperanza also swept both relays in both boys’ and girls’ divisions, setting a meet record in the boys’ 400-meter relay with a time of 42.89.

In sprints, Los Alamitos’ Erik Mitchell won both the 100 (10.70) and the 200 (21.38), outrunning Esperanza’s Roshawn Sims in the latter by nearly a second. Sims came back to win the 400 in 48.44.

Katella’s Martha Pinto had little trouble winning the 3,200 in 10:57.98, breaking Rhonda Craig’s 11-year-old meet record of 11:00.24. An hour later, she produced the most exciting finish to win the 1,600 in 5:10.76.

In that race, Pinto, a two-time Orange County girls’ cross-country champion, set the pace nearly the entire race, with Los Alamitos’ Tracy Fatone running a step behind. With 300 meters to go, Fatone was in perfect position and started her kick. But Pinto, who is not known for great finishing speed, caught Fatone and passed her just before the finish. Fatone was second in 5:10.84.