Das Neves Surprises in 1,600; Williams, Blunt Win Hurdles : State track & field: Three athletes from area schools win gold medals. Das Neves does it by outrunning the national cross-country champion.

Daniel das Neves of Helix was looking past Saturday’s CIF/Reebok State Track and Field Championships. It seems he had bigger races to run and bigger dreams in his head.

Nevertheless, one week before das Neves, an exchange student from Brazil, was scheduled to run in his native country’s junior national championships, he picked up an extra memory.

Das Neves, a sophomore, created the biggest upset of the state meet when he blew away from heavily favored Louie Quintana of Arroyo Grande, the current Kinney national cross-country champion, and the rest of the field to win the 1,600 meters in 4 minutes 12.22 seconds.

Das Neves led a contingent of San Diego Section athletes that came away with three gold medals, three silvers and four third-places, including two from Serra sprinter Angela Sullivan.

Even the surprise of the meet was shaking his head in disbelief.

Das Neves was only going for a personal best. A victory was out of the question. After all, Quintana “had already run under 4:10. My best was 4:14.”

So what happened? Quintana, who likes to use his edge in endurance by going out strong early in a race and burning his opponents’ legs out from under them, didn’t establish a quick pace.

“I thought he was going to go at 800 (meters),” das Neves said. “And he did, but I decided I was going to keep up with him and then he didn’t go so fast.”

Quintana and das Neves actually led the pack from the start of the second lap. They ran shoulder-to-shoulder with Quintana on the outside.

They stayed like that until 300 meters remained when das Neves suddenly realized he could go home with a gold medal.

“I was really surprised when I kicked and nobody came with me,” das Neves said. “I thought, ‘Wow! Today’s my day--I got it!’ ”

Not only did Quintana fail to kick, but he also let two others pass by and finished fourth in 4:14.43.

“I just didn’t run a very smart race,” Quintana said. “I should have went for it at 800 meters, but when I didn’t, my whole race plan was thrown out of whack. I knew that if anyone was within 150 yards of me at the end, that it would be over; they’d swallow me up.”

Other section athletes to come off the infield of the Cerritos College stadium with gold medals were Erin Blunt of San Pasqual and Keith Williams of Escondido. Both won their respective 300-meter hurdles race after falling apart in the shorter hurdles.

Blunt finished the 300-meter lows in 43.02, and Williams completed the 300 intermediates in 37.28.

Blunt nearly won two golds. After reacting out of the blocks behind the rest of the field in the 100 lows, Blunt caught up and actually went ahead coming down from the sixth hurdle.

She was pulling away going up for the ninth hurdle, but she kicked it, stumbled and fell behind, eventually finishing sixth at 14.81.

Blunt’s concentration was shattered, and she flashed back to last year’s state finals when she ran the 300 lows and disappointed herself with a seventh-place finish.

“But I learned a lot from that experience,” she said. “It made me realize everything is the same as everything else. The distance is the same, the hurdles are the same. The only thing that’s different is the crowd.”

There were 10,510 on hand for the finals.

“But you don’t really hear the people while you’re running,” Blunt said. “The only time I heard the people was when I hit the hurdle and they went ‘aaawww.’ Then I went, ‘aaawww.’ . . .

“But I guess that’s the race. I have to take it and move on.”

Blunt did move on, and like she did in the shorter race, she took the lead in the 300 lows coming off the fifth hurdle. This time she kept it.

But she did more than win. She also motivated.

“When Erin came back to win the 300s, it gave me confidence to do the same,” Williams said.

After finishing last in the 110-meter highs at 14.68, Williams came back in the longer hurdles and became the first boy from the San Diego Section ever to win a hurdles race at the state meet.

“And that’s something no one can ever take away from me,” Williams said. “I set a goal for myself at the beginning of the year and the people of San Diego had faith in me and knew I could be a state champ. I wanted to live up to that.”

Williams did, finishing in 37.28 and building a gap of several strides between himself and the second-place finisher, Hawthorne’s Demond Smith (38.04).

But Williams couldn’t pull even with the early leaders until he came off the turn.

“I was nervous at the start,” he said. “I wasn’t Keith until I got to the fifth hurdle. That’s when I pulled away. I asked myself who I was and how I can run and I took off from there.”

Sullivan of Serra placed third in the 100 meters (11.92; Marion Jones of Oxnard Rio Mesa won in a National Federation record of 11.17), and third in the 200 (24.30; Jones’ first-place time was 22.91).

Another double-winner included Milena Glusac of Fallbrook, who placed third in the 1,600 with a personal best of 4:51.29, then came back in the 3,200 and placed second in 10:33.57.

Becky Spies of Livermore (who placed first in the 1,600 at 4:45.11), Nikki Shaw of Fillmore (second in the 1,600 at 4:49.01), and Deena Drossin of Agoura (first in the 3,200 at 10:30.71) are all seniors. Glusac is a sophomore.

But she’s a seasoned veteran when it comes to dodging questions.

“It’s hard to double,” Glusac said when asked what she thinks she can do without the three seniors the next two years. “And it’s going to give me good experience on what to base my decisions on in the future.”

Allison Dring of Mt. Carmel picked up a silver medal for her 54.39 finish in the 400 meters (Janice Nicholls of Bakersfield was first in 54.19), and Darnay Scott of Kearny also won a silver, his coming in the 200 as he finished in 20.98 to the 20.84 turned in by Ricky Carrigan of Compton.