STATE JUNIOR COLLEGE TRACK CHAMPIONSHIPS : Valley’s Clarke Makes Her Point--5,000 Times--in Heptathlon

Melanie Clarke had difficulty concentrating Saturday during the second day of the heptathlon in the state junior college track and field championships at Santa Barbara City College.

Her problem wasn’t caused by nervousness, but rather by soreness in her lower back from an injury sustained in the high jump during the first day of the heptathlon. However, the soreness proved to be about the only challenge the Valley College freshman faced.

The former El Camino Real High standout amassed 5,034 points to become the first athlete in five years to surpass the 5,000-point plateau in the state meet.

Edwina Ammonds of King’s River finished second with 4,698 and Donna Lee of Long Beach City placed third with 4,528.

“(My back) hurt, but I just tried to block it out,” said Clarke, who began the day 135 points ahead of Ammonds. “I couldn’t focus on the long jump. I wanted to jump in the 18s, but I was just out there jumping. My mind wasn’t on the meet.”

In the team competition, Taft won the men’s title, outscoring Long Beach, 96-90; Mt. San Antonio outpointed Long Beach for the women’s title, 85-74.

While Clarke was dominating the multi-event competition, several area athletes in individual events were having their problems. In the 400-meter intermediate hurdles, for example, Larry Sanders of Taft handed Glendale’s Marty Beck his first loss of the year, running 51.06 seconds to Beck’s 51.22.

Glendale’s Dave Swanson placed second in the high jump (6 feet 11 3/4 inches) and Simone Cain of Ventura finished third in the 400 (55.36) and fourth in the 200 (24.23).

However Marji Gilles of Glendale, who tied for fifth in the heptathlon, came back to win the triple jump, bounding 37-3 1/4.

Gil Carrillo of Moorpark (6,359) and Ryan Rapoza of Ventura (6,267) placed fifth and sixth in the decathlon and fifth and eighth in the open javelin with throws of 189-9 and 184-8.

Jaime Galindo of Ventura placed fifth in the 5,000 in 14:52.41. Noureddine Morceli of Riverside, the 1,500 winner in 3.47.65 and the national junior college record-holder at 5,000, won the longer race in 14:13.45.

After posting the top marks in three of Friday’s four events, Clarke, who has qualified for next month’s TAC junior nationals in the 400, high jump, long jump and heptathlon, failed to place first in the long jump, javelin, and 800 meters on Saturday.

But she finished well enough. Clarke leaped 17-9 in the long jump, the second-best mark in the field, and recorded a personal best in the javelin at 111-9, the fourth-best toss in the field.

Entering the 800, the final event, Clarke held a commanding 272-point lead over Lee and 328 points over Ammonds.

Lee needed to beat Clarke by 25.9 seconds to win the competition, which proved to be too much.

Clarke led through the first lap and went on to place second in 2:22.12. Ammonds was third in 2:22.7 and Lee took seventh in 2:41.

“It’s great to win, but I would have liked to have been in the other events too,” said Clarke, who had to pull out of several individual events after hurting an ankle in the Southern California meet. Clarke cleared 5-8 in the heptathlon high jump Friday--a mark that would have won the open high jump by more than two inches.