Jones Posts Top Marks in 3 Sprints at 3-A Meet

Rio Mesa High track and field co-Coach Brian FitzGerald believes it was best for Marion Jones and the Spartans that the school’s 1,600-meter relay team did not qualify for Saturday’s Southern Section 3-A Division preliminaries at Camarillo High.

The team finished fourth at the Channel League finals May 3 with only the top three advancing to the preliminarie. An athlete is allowed to compete in only four events, and the sophomore sprinter was kept pretty busy as it was Saturday.

Jones posted the top marks in the 100, 200 and 400 meters and ran the anchor leg on Rio Mesa’s 400-meter relay team, which produced the fastest mark of the day.

The top nine in each event qualified for the Southern Section divisional finals Friday at Cerritos College in Norwalk.

Jones started the day by anchoring the Rio Mesa 400-meter relay team of Chainti Austin, Alycia Burnham and Ashanti Austin to the top mark of 48.74 seconds.

Next, Jones won the 400 in 56.33 and 30 minutes later won the 100 in 11.34. Jones ran under her 3-A record of 11.66 set at last year’s preliminaries, but was assisted by a 3.17 meters-per-second tail wind, which was over the allowable 2.0 mps, and negated the mark for record purposes.

Jones, the defending state champion in the 100 and the 200 meters, concluded her day in the 200, cruising in a 23.55. The mark was wind-aided. “I want to run all three for finals and I’ll decide after next week if I’ll try to do it at state,” said Jones, the national leader in the 100 (11.38), 200 (22.87) and 400 (53.89).

Burnham also qualified in the 100- and 300-meter low hurdles. She had the fastest mark in the 100 hurdles with a wind-aided 14.37 (2.46 m.p.s) and had the No. 3 mark in the longer race (46.64).

Rio Mesa’s Carla Knudsen also advanced in the high jump, clearing 5-2, to put the Spartans in contention to defend their 3-A team championship Friday.

Jessica Graham of Westlake was in position to easily qualify in the first heat of the 800 meters until she collapsed into the grass infield 40 meters from the finish.

Graham stayed in the infield for about 25 minutes before requiring assistance to leave the track. Graham led through the first 700 meters before being overtaken entering the last straightaway by Sharlyn Carr of Bonita, who won the race in the fastest qualifying time of the day at 2:16.85.

“I can’t remember much,” Graham said 90 minutes later. “I think I blacked out for a couple of seconds. I felt weaker and weaker going during the second lap. I felt dizzy at first, but now I’m mostly upset.”

Westlake Coach Teri Rockhold sensed something was wrong during the race. “She wasn’t just like the regular Jessica,” Rockhold said. “She didn’t have any fight in her when she got passed.”

Graham was also scheduled to anchor the Westlake 1,600-meter relay team, but was held out on the recommendation of physicians at the meet. Westlake placed second in its heat in 4:10.37, but Buena, which won in 4:09.18, picked up the ninth qualifying position.

Jeannie Rothman of Westlake and Deena Drossin of Agoura turned in the fastest times in the 3,200 meters in winning their respective heats in 10:55.38 and 10:56.09.

Eric Spayde of Thousand Oaks was the leading qualifier in the 3,200 at 9:20.63. Westlake’s Crystal Brownlee had the top mark in the shotput at 45-2, more than two feet farther than the No. 2 qualifier.