ORANGE LEAGUE MEET : Valencia’s Boys Come Out Running; Killeen Leads Girls to Victory

Valencia High School thoroughly dominated the Orange League track and field championships by sweeping the boys’ and girls’ team championships Friday night at Western High School.

Valencia’s boys won seven of the 10 running events, and junior Heather Killeen was named girls’ athlete of the meet after victories in the 880, mile and 2-mile.

Only Magnolia’s Phouphet Singbandith, who was named boys’ athlete of the meet, kept the evening from belonging exclusively to Valencia.

As expected, the Magnolia senior won in the long jump and triple jump with meet record marks. With a stiff breeze to his back, Singbandith reached 23 feet 7 3/4 inches in the long jump. On his second attempt, he reached 49-1 1/4 in the triple jump, an event in which he has the nation’s best prep mark (51- 3/4) this season. He jumped 48-6 on his first try.

Valencia displayed strong depth and balance in the boys’ events to score 150 points, easily outdistancing second-place Savanna (104) and third-place Western (80).

Savanna’s Ray Estrada outdueled Valencia’s Jose Sandoval in the mile, winning 4:32.01 to 4:32.45. Western’s Dariel Whipple won the 100-yard dash in 10.38, and Magnolia’s Scott Crawford won the 120 high hurdles in 15.83.

Sandoval came back in the two-mile to square his rivalry with Estrada with a victory clocked at 9:57.87.

But the most impressive individual effort of the meet belonged to Killeen.

After an easy victory in the mile (5:34.62), Killeen came back four events later to edge teammate Heidi Smith in the 880 in 2:28.11. Three events later, she easily outdistanced her competition in the 2-mile in 12:01.74, finishing more than a minute ahead of runner-up Cathy Pusch (13:02.70) of Savanna.

Killeen’s effort eclipsed that of Brea-Olinda’s Dena Bloomfield, who won in the long jump (17-5), triple jump (34-6) and 330 low hurdles (47.89).

Western’s Kwanzaa Gibson won the girls’ sprints with times of 11.90 in the 100 and 27.18 in the 220. Magnolia’s Luisa Tuimavave won the weight events with a 120-4 throw in the discus and a 34-6 1/2 mark in the shotput.

Besides Singbandith, Tom Cowen of Western was the only boys’ double winner with a 150-1 discus throw and a shotput of 49- 3/4.