Agoura Girls Win Relay and Barely Miss Record

One second.

A minuscule measure of time haunted Agoura High distance runner Deena Drossin for the second time in as many weeks.

On Friday night, however, Drossin shared the disappointment with three of her teammates.

Agoura’s 4 x 1,600-meter relay team of Laura Hayward, Tiffany York, Kristie Camp and Drossin timed 20 minutes 35.05 seconds at the Mt. San Antonio College Relays. Agoura’s winning time fell just short of the Chargers’ goal of the meet record of 20:34.1 set by a Mexican high school team in 1987.

“Why is it always one second?” Drossin said without expressing dissatisfaction. “It’s like we’re jinxed or something.”

Last Saturday at the Arcadia Invitational, Drossin’s nation-leading 10:19.63 effort in the 3,200 was close to the meet-record 10:18.41 run by Palos Verdes’ Kristen O’Hara in 1984.

With the Mt. SAC standard in mind Friday night, Hayward led Agoura off with a 5:15.6 split and handed the baton to York in fifth place after taking over the lead from Mexico at 2 1/2 laps.

York’s 5:13.3 split brought the Chargers from fifth to first over the first 360 meters of the second leg. The UC Irvine-bound senior led Mexico by as much as 30 meters and relayed the baton to Camp with a 20-meter advantage.

Camp extended Agoura’s margin by 75 meters at the 800 mark on the third leg. Camp clocked a 5:11.2 split, giving Drossin and Agoura an insurmountable lead.

Drossin ran a gutsy 4:54.5 effort on her anchor leg.

The time is faster that Drossin’s personal best of 4:54.71 but it will not count for record purposes because she clocked it on a relay with a running start.

Agoura won by about 275 meters over Escondido San Pasqual (21:22.90), which overtook Mexico (21:26.80) on the final lap.

Hart remained in the running throughout the boys’ 4 x 1,600 relay and Billy Dixon brought the Indians to within one meter of San Pasqual with 150 meters to go, but Robert Walker put on a magnificent sprint to defeat Hart in 17:56.7.

Walker timed 4:17.7 and Dixon ran 4:20.9 as Hart finished in 18:00.0.

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