HIGH SCHOOL TRACK : San Diego Athletes Face Stiff Competition at State Meet : Finals: San Pasqual’s Blunt, Escondido’s Williams and Mt. Carmel’s Dring will be running against some of the nation’s best.

Track and field athletes from the San Diego Section, notorious for misfortune at the Reebok/CIF Championships, appear to be doomed to bad luck once again.

And this time before the meet has even begun. Several area runners, ranked among the nation’s fastest, are matched against athletes ranked as the fastest .

But there figure to be a few San Diego shoo-ins--and even a dark horse--when the meet begins at 3 p.m. Friday at Cerritos College in Norwalk.

The dark horse would be Castle Park’s Isaac Sanchez, who competes at 800 meters.

In the section preliminaries almost two weeks ago and in a weak heat, Sanchez, a sophomore, ran a 1:58.52. That was good enough to win his heat, but only the sixth-fastest on the day.

So when Sanchez lined up for the start of the 800 at the Section finals, he did so with few expectations.

He came through and was more than four seconds faster than he was at the preliminaries, finishing in a personal-best 1:54.34.

While good enough to win the section, the time is also slow enough to cloak Sanchez at the state meet; it is only the 10th fastest in California and nearly two seconds off the 1:52.72 turned in by Bryan Woodward of Long Beach Poly.

It is likely Sanchez will have to shave at least two more seconds if he is to have a chance at equaling his section performance at state. But, as he was going into the Section meet with only the sixth-best time, Sanchez remains undaunted.

“I know I can win,” Sanchez said. “If anyone wants to challenge me, fine. I’m going to run even harder then.”

Before the section finals, Sanchez’s personal best was 1:56.6 (hand-timed), which came at the Orange Glen Invitational on April 26. Sanchez, however, recalls that day with grief. His grandfather passed away that afternoon.

“He was a great inspiration to me,” Sanchez said. “He wanted to see me do something with my running, and now I want to win for him.”

Alan Duke, Castle Park coach, does not doubt that Sanchez can do exactly that.

“He’s kind of like a machine,” Duke said. “He’ll do whatever his competition does. If they run a 1:58, Isaac will run a 1:58. If they run a 1:53, Isaac will run a 1:53.

“I had him running sprints during practice the other day and he was beating my sprinters. He could probably run an 11.1 100 meters.”

The big challenge for Sanchez might be getting through Friday’s preliminary heat. The winners of each of the four heats advance, plus the next four fastest times overall.

What concerns Duke is that Sanchez would get stuck in one heat, and several of the fastest runners would be matched in another. That would create some very fast times, and all of the wild-card finalists could come from such a heat.

“We can only go one goal at a time,” Duke said. “Isaac has to go up there Friday and do what he has to do to make the finals. And we’ve told him to do that, he has to win his heat.”

The three section runners with the biggest expectations are:

- San Pasqual hurdler Erin Blunt. A junior, Blunt owns the state’s fastest time in the 100 lows, 14.26; and has the nations best time in the 300 lows, 42.69.

- Escondido hurdler Keith Williams. A senior, Williams owns the state’s fastest time in the 300 intermediates, 36.9, and the second-fastest in the 110 highs, 14.31. Williams might have to break 14 seconds to win the 110s. Isaac Carson of Daly City Jefferson has run a 13.96.

- Allison Dring of Mt. Carmel. Dring has the second-fastest time in the nation in the 400, 54.39. Marion Jones of Oxnard Rio Mesa owns the fastest time, 52.91, but reportedly will scratch the 400 in favor of the 100 and 200.

Others aren’t as lucky as Dring, and will go up against tougher competition than they have faced all season.

Angela Sullivan, for instance, won section titles in the 100 and 200, but now has to face Jones, who holds this season’s national bests in the 100 (11.28) and in the 200 (22.87). What’s more, those times are National Federation records.

How fast is Jones? Consider that her 100 time is faster than those of the sprinters who make up the first three legs on Southwest’s boys’ 400-meter relay team which qualified for the state meet.

All of which makes a monumental challenge for Sullivan, also one of the quickest sprinters in the nation.

Sullivan is more than a half-second slower than Jones in the 100 at 11.93, and nearly a second-and-a-half slower in the 200 at 24.21. Both are the third-best marks in the state.

Fallbrook sophomore Milena Glusac, who qualified in the 1,600 and in the 3,200, is the nation’s second fastest runner in each event.

But guess what? California is also home to the country’s fastest runners in those two distances.

Glusac’s top time in the 1,600 (4:52.8) pales when compared to that of Fillmore’s Nikki Shaw (4:49.77). Both will undoubtedly wind up in the finals.

Glusac is also likely to make the finals in the 3,200 in which she has clocked a 10:24.61. Deena Drossin of Aguora, however, has done a 10:19.73.

When the season began, the Section boasted four of the state’s top sprinters in Riley Washington of Southwest, Scott Hammond of Lincoln, Darnay Scott of Kearny, and Teddy Lawrence of Morse.

Then Hammond went down with a hamstring injury.

Then Washington was sidetracked by strep throat.

Then Lawrence went down with a hamstring injury.

And then there was Scott, considered a top threat in the 200 who might want to gain additional strength in that event by forgoing the 100.

Scott stayed with both and won section titles by edging Washington in each.

At the section finals, He finished the 100 in 10.59, equaling his season best. Later, a 21.27 performance in the 200 had Scott boasting that he could get under 21.0 at the state meet.

No one in the state has yet done that without the aid of a brisk wind at his back. Only Ricky Carrigan of Compton has a faster, legal 200 time than Scott’s 21.27. Carrigan owns a 21.07 mark.

Washington, while acknowledging his season has not been what it could have been, insists he should not be counted out of contention.

“I’m not satisfied with my performances,” he said of his 10.59 100 best, and his 21.60 200 best. “But I’m not done. My season isn’t over yet.”

Scott’s season reached something of a crescendo a at the Section finals when he won the 100.

“He really, really wanted to beat Riley in the 100,” said Joe Cohen, coach at Kearny. “So now he’s happy.”