RUNNING / JOHN ORTEGA : Reseda’s Powell Elevates Stature as Hurdler

Steve Caminiti, Reseda High’s track coach, describes Regent junior hurdler Drue Powell as a David in a land of Goliaths, but the 5-foot-8, 139-pound Powell will be the preseason favorite to win the state title in the 110-meter high hurdles next year.

Powell earned that acknowledgment last Saturday when he timed a wind-aided 14.16 seconds to place third in the high hurdles in the state championships at Cerritos College. He was the only non-senior in the race.

Powell finished ahead of better-known hurdlers Marcus Stokes of Thacher (fourth), Raymond Banner of Birmingham (fifth) and Chris Redmond of Vallejo (seventh).

“We weren’t really shooting for a particular time,” Caminiti said. “Our main goal was to get into the finals, and then once we were there, to run almost recklessly.”

Figuring that Powell had nothing to lose because he was seeded ninth entering the meet, Caminiti instructed him to go for broke in the final, which sometimes can prove disastrous in such a highly technical event.

“He got lucky,” Caminiti said. “He ran a clean race, which is important. If he had hit any hurdles, it might have been all over.”

Powell’s 14.16 clocking is his fastest, and it followed a wind-aided 14.39 in his heat Friday. The previous week, he won the City Section title at 14.50, despite running into a head wind of 1.26 meters per second.

“He had a good year,” Caminiti said. “He ran fast at the right times. Now I would just like to see him grow a couple of inches between now and next year.”

Caminiti, who ran 13.7 in the 120-yard high hurdles for Crespi in 1964, also wants Powell to improve his personal best of 40.11 in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles.

“He loves the highs,” Caminiti said. “But it’s important that he run some quality times in the intermediates too.”

Powell placed sixth in the intermediates in the City final but did not qualify for the state meet.

Down in the dumps: A forgettable season for City Section track and field came to a close in the state championships.

For the first time since 1972, the section failed to produce at least one state champion. Worse yet, City performers accounted for only 13 points in 31 boys’ and girls’ events in the meet, which uses a 10-8-6-4-2-1 scoring system.

In the previous six years, City athletes had accounted for an average of 69 3/4 points.

From 1973-91, the City averaged nearly four state champions a year and it produced a high of nine in 1976, a year in which Charles White of San Fernando timed 36.0 in the 330-yard low hurdles, Larry Doubley of Manual Arts leaped 25-11 1/2 in the long jump, and Greg Caldwell of Fremont bounded 51-6 1/2 in the triple jump.

“This year was pathetic,” Caminiti said. “I don’t know all the reasons why, but it was a very bad year.”

In 1977, the City produced three high jumpers who cleared at least 6 feet 10 1/2 inches.

In 1980, three triple jumpers bounded 48-5 1/4 or farther, and in 1982, the City had three sub-1:51 performers in the 800.

Performances on the girls’ side were just as impressive, if not more so. In 1981, for example, five girls from City schools timed 11.82 or faster in the 100 meters, four ran under 2:11 in the 800, and four timed 44.5 or faster in the 300 low hurdles.

“I thought we were all supposed to get better over time,” Caminiti said. “But that hasn’t happened.”

Time for a change: Art Green, the girls’ track coach at Thousand Oaks High since 1978, said qualifying for the state championships should be based on meeting qualifying marks and not on the athlete’s order of finish in a section meet.

Under the current format, 28 qualifiers from 10 sections advance to the state meet in each event.

The Southern Section, the state’s largest with nearly 490 schools, is allowed five qualifiers in each event, followed by the City and North Coast sections, which each have four.

“Too many good kids don’t get a chance to get to the state meet the way it is now,” Green said. “The NCAA meet is based on qualifying marks and I don’t know why we couldn’t do the same thing.”

Green used Thousand Oaks senior Heather Hanger as an example of the system’s inadequacy.

Hanger had run 14.54 seconds in the 100-meter low hurdles this season but she did not finish among the top three in the Marmonte League championships after falling near the end of race.

Because of that, she did not advance to the 3-A Division preliminaries, the qualifying meet for the 3-A finals. The top nine finishers--based on performance--in the divisional finals advance to the Masters meet, and the first five finishers there advance to the state meet.

“It’s unfair that someone like Heather didn’t get a chance to compete against kids that she had beaten earlier this year,” Green said. “The current system is just too cutthroat.”

Although Green is miffed about the system, he said there is no movement by coaches to change it.

Recruit watch: Lori Miller of Bakersfield North High and Cherice Ellison of San Jose Mt. Pleasant, two recent signees with Cal State Northridge, competed in the state meet.

Miller ran a personal best of 5:01.12 to place sixth in the girls’ 1,600 meters.

Ellison was sixth in the girls’ long jump (18-6 3/4), eighth in the 200 (24.76) and finished a non-qualifying third (wind-aided 12.13) in her heat of the 100.

Tracking the trials: Several athletes with ties to the region are picked to place among the top 10 in their events in the U. S. Olympic trials in New Orleans, June 19-28, in the latest issue of Track & Field News magazine.

In the men’s meet, Quincy Watts of USC, a three-time state sprint champion for Taft High, is picked third in the 400 meters. Dave Stephens of the New York Athletic Club and the 1984 NCAA Division II champion for Cal State Northridge, is picked fourth in the javelin.

In the women’s meet, Thousand Oaks High junior Marion Jones is picked fourth in the 200 and 10th in the 100, and Denean Howard-Hill, a four-time state sprint champion for Kennedy High, is tabbed for fourth in the 400.

Regina Jacobs, a former standout for Argyll Academy (now Campbell Hall High), is picked for fifth-place finishes in the 800 and the 1,500. Darcy Arreola of Nike Coast Athletics and the 1991 NCAA Division I champion in the 1,500 for Northridge is tabbed to place sixth in that event.

Nike Coast teammate Donna Mayhew, a former standout for Glendale College, is expected to make her second Olympic team with a runner-up finish in the javelin. Newhall’s Victoria Herazo of Club West is picked fourth in the 10-kilometer walk.

Running Razorback: Deena Drossin of Arkansas concluded her first year of collegiate competition with an eighth-place finish in the women’s 5,000 meters in the Division I meet. Drossin, the 1991 state champion in the 3,200 for Agoura High, timed 16:49.30.

She has been invited to compete in the 5,000 in the Olympic trials, although it the race will be a demonstration event.