Agoura Sets State Record in Girls’ 6,400-Meter Relay

A week after coming .002 seconds short of a national best in the Arcadia Invitational, freshman Amy Skieresz anchored the Agoura High girls’ 6,400-meter relay team to a state record Friday night at the Mt. San Antonio College relays.

Senior Laura Hayward, sophomore Kay Nekota, junior Kristie Camp and Skieresz, who helped lead the Chargers to their second consecutive State cross-country title in November, combined to win in 20 minutes 29.15 seconds for the distance, slightly shorter than four miles.

The Chargers’ time converts to a 20:36.32 for four miles and ranks third on the national list. Last season, Hayward and Camp ran on an Agoura team that ranks fifth at 20:42.27. Rochester (N.Y.) Brighton set the national record of 20:28.00 for four miles in 1985.

Skieresz, who ran a 5:02.8 anchor leg, was out-leaned by Shelley Taylor of Edison High School at the finish of the distance medley relay at Arcadia as Edison won in a national best of 12:09.37.

“I was personally upset,” Skieresz said. “I don’t know if this makes up for it, but it feels good to come back and run a good time. Our goal was for everybody to run 5:05 to 5:10.”

Agoura came pretty close. Hayward opened with a 5:11.7, followed by Nekota (5:05.8) and Camp (5:08.7). Runner-up San Marino finished more than a minute behind in 21:36.4.

Milena Glusac, the Western Regional cross-country champion, led the Fallbrook distance medley relay team to victory in 12:07.00, No. 10 on the all-time state list and more than two seconds under Edison’s 1992 best.

Fallbrook was on pace to become the fourth school from the state to break 12 minutes until Glusac slowed shortly after 800 meters.

“My first two laps were good, but I lost my concentration on the third lap,” Glusac said. “Our first goal was to win the race. Our second goal was to run a national best. We put our times together and projected that we could run 12:08 or 12:09.”

Keith Moten of Loyola edged Demond Smith of Hawthorne for his second victory in three meetings in the 300 intermediate hurdles. Both were timed in 37.9.

Other winners included sophomore Jeremy Fischer (6 feet 10 inches) and Danielle Boswell of Fresno Bullard (5-10) in the high jump, Milton Hughes of Stockton Stagg in the 800 (1:51.06), defending state champion Erin Blunt of San Pasqual in the 300 hurdles in 43.84 and Jeff Buckey of Bakersfield in the shotput and discus (188-8).