HIGH SCHOOL TRACK / CITY SECTION SEMIFINALS : Birmingham Proves Lucky <i> and </i> Good

If luck is to play a part in Birmingham High’s bid for a City Section boys’ track championship, then the Braves ought to feel pretty good about their chances after Thursday’s semifinals on their home track.

Twelve Birmingham athletes qualified in individual events for next Thursday’s City finals and both of the Braves’ relay teams advanced.

But it was the manner in which some of those athletes qualified that left the Birmingham coaching staff smiling. For example, the 400-meter relay team of Patrick Abdelkerim, Raymond Banner, Mike Moguel and Tony Serpas was disqualified in last week’s Valley Pac-8 Conference finals. The quartet got into Thursday’s meet as an alternate entry, then turned in a season-best time of 42.71 seconds to win the third of four heats.

The time was the second fastest of the meet behind Dorsey’s 42.47, and it came despite some very conservative passing on the second and third exchanges.

“That was a confidence builder,” Birmingham Coach Scott King said. “That’s all it really was. We told them to play it safe this time and they did.”

Moguel, who placed second in his heat of the 400 in a season-best of 49.08 seconds, said the relay team’s performance was a relief.

“Once we did that, we figured we could do anything,” Moguel said. “That kind of fired us up for the rest of the meet.”

For Dorsey, a co-favorite with Birmingham for the City title, 11 athletes qualified in individual events and both relay teams also advanced. But the Dons suffered a big setback when William Butler was held out of the triple jump for disciplinary reasons.

Butler was the second-ranked triple jumper in the City entering the meet.

“We’re still in pretty good shape,” Dorsey Coach Paul Knox said. “We got most of our guys through, but next week is when it counts.”

Banner, the defending City champion in the 110-meter high hurdles, and Alvaro Mejia, the City cross-country champion, had the top qualifying marks in their events for Birmingham.

Banner timed 14.84 seconds in the high hurdles despite running into a stiff head wind and clocked 39.55 in the 300 intermediates.

Mejia, a junior, ran personal bests of 4 minutes 23.85 seconds in the 1,600 and 9:35.26 in the 3,200 to turn back Gardena’s Morris Giddens (4:26.37 and 9:38.16) in both races.

Birmingham’s Tony Serpas qualified for the City finals in both the 100 and 200 meters, running 11.11 and 22.52 to finish second in his heat in both races.