HIGH SCHOOL TRACK : Williams Gets Shoes--and Berths in Hurdles Finals : Preliminaries: Escondido senior leads parade of San Diego athletes into the finals at state meet.

NORWALK — Keith Williams, a hurdler from Escondido High, doesn’t like to fool with luck.

“I’m a very superstitious person,” he said Friday night at Cerritos College, where preliminary heats of the CIF/Reebok track and field championships were held.

So Williams explained how he prepared for his events throughout the day the same way he has since midseason. He explained how he warmed up for the 110-meter high hurdles the same way he has all year.

But not exactly the same. In fact, he veered far from his normal course.

As far as superstitions go, Williams, a senior, broke the first commandment of track and field.

He wore a brand new pair of spikes--at the biggest competition of the year, no less.

His luck held, however. Williams won the only 110-meter high hurdles heat that was not wind-aided in 14.34 seconds to advance to today’s finals.

“I was wearing some new spikes,” he said. “I just bought them today--two minutes before the race. . . . I had to hurry and pull out the shoe laces real quick so I could put on my lucky laces.

“I’m a very superstitious person.”

A contradiction? Perhaps, but Williams was one of several San Diego-area athletes to advance to today’s finals, which begin at 5 p.m. today with field events.

Other top San Diego Section qualifiers included:

* Fallbrook sophomore Milena Glusac, who took the lead in her heat of the 1,600 meters at the outset, then traded it twice in the final 300 meters with Livermore’s Becky Spies before winning with the top qualifying time, 4:56.70.

* Southwest’s Riley Washington, who turned in a wind-aided 10.43 in the 100 meters. It was the second-fastest time to the wind-aided 10.32 run by Compton’s Ricky Carrigan in another heat.

* San Pasqual junior hurdler Erin Blunt, who had the second fastest 100-meter low hurdle time, a wind-aided 14.09. In another heat, Phetima Woods of Duarte ran a wind-backed 13.98. Blunt also qualified in the 300-meter low hurdles with a time of 44.22.

* Mt. Carmel’s Susan Scott, who surprised everyone by winning the third heat of the 800 meters in 2:15.45.

* Mt. Carmel’s Allison Dring, Scott’s best friend, who ran the evening’s swiftest 400 meters in 55.50.

* Helix’s Daniel das Neves, who placed first in the final heat of the 1,600 (4:17.93) and was one of three San Diego Section boys to qualify in that race.

The other two were Mar Vista’s Hector Hernandez (4:18.89), who placed third in das Neves’ heat, and Robert Walker, who turned in a 4:16.50 and placed second in his heat to Arroyo Grande’s Louie Quintana (4:16.26), the national leader in the event.

Williams ran his heat of the 110-meter hurdles in the same convincing manner in which he won the section meet a week ago. He was first to react to the gun and was already a step ahead of the field at the first hurdle. From there, he merely stretched out his advantage, beating second-place finisher Ryan Kieling of Crespi 28-hundredths of a second.

“Did I run well?” he asked, showing a bit of insecurity that vanished upon hearing the answer. “Yeah, my new spikes felt really light, felt good. They didn’t even cost $30, and the guy I bought them from said if I didn’t like the way they felt during the race, I could return them.

“But I like them, so I’m keeping them.”

In all likelihood, Williams will not be thinking about his new Reeboks today. He has a chance at two gold medals because later in the preliminaries, he placed first in his 300-meter hurdle heat with a time of 37.65, good for the top qualifying spot.

Glusac also could come away with two golds. Besides qualifying for the finals of the 1,600 meters, she is scheduled to run the 3,200 as well. Whether she will will depend on how much running the 1,600 saps her energy.

Glusac entered the meet with something of a disadvantage: In San Diego, she had little competition and until Friday did not know what it was to be pushed.

“I’m not used to going that fast,” she said of her kick that did in Spies on the final stretch. “But still, my legs responded really well.”

Despite knowing that the top four finishers qualify, Glusac let paranoia get the best of her as she decided to change gears.

She kicked, she said, because, “If I let them go by, I didn’t know how far back the fourth person was.”

Two other section athletes with a chance at two golds are Southwest’s Washington, and Kearny’s Darnay Scott, both of whom qualified in the 100 and 200 meters.

Because of an atrocious start, Scott barely qualified in the 100 at 10.53. But he atoned for his lapse in concentration in the 200 by qualifying with the second-fastest time, a wind-aided 21.20, but still not good enough to catch Compton’s Carrigan. He ran a legal 20.85.

Washington had to go against Carrigan in his 200-meter preliminary heat, and finished second at 21.43.

Washington will concentrate more on Carrigan in the 100 today; that’s Washington’s specialty.

“Hey, I’m in it to win,” he said defiantly when asked about his chances against Carrigan.

“I just want to break the record,” he said of the section mark of 21.00 set four years ago by Crawford’s Raymond Ethridge.

History would repeat itself if Scott gets the section record, but does not beat Carrigan. Ethridge set the mark at the 1987 state meet and placed second to Taft’s Quincy Watts, who won by a hundredth of a second.