Getting a Leg Up on the Competition : Track: Former Santa Monica standout Felice Lipscomb struggled in her first two years at USC, but she has emerged as the hurdler to beat in the Pac-10 as a junior.

Three years ago, Felice Lipscomb was the main attraction on the Santa Monica High track team.

She was a four-time Ocean League most valuable player, a state champion in the 100-meter hurdles as a junior and the 1990 state champion in the 100- and 300-meter hurdles as a senior.

Lipscomb enrolled at USC and expected to make an immediate impact on the track program, but she struggled to adjust to the higher hurdles. After winning her first three races in 1991, Lipscomb found herself losing consistently for the first time in her career.

After running a 13.58 100 hurdles in high school, Lipscomb’s best automatic time over the higher hurdles was 13.96. She finished her nondescript freshman season with a sixth-place finish in the 100 hurdles at the Pacific-10 Conference meet.

“My freshman year was very frustrating and disappointing,” Lipscomb said. “I just didn’t run as well as I had hoped.”

An increased workload didn’t help Lipscomb adjust to college competition. At Santa Monica, she ran only two hurdle races and maybe a relay, but at USC Lipscomb became a four-event runner. Along with her two hurdle races, she became a mainstay on the 400- and 1,600-meter relay teams.

“A combination of a lot of things led to the problems I had as a freshman,” Lipscomb said. “First, there was the transition from high school to college coaching; then there was the fact that I was going over higher hurdles, and then there was the pressure of running four events every meet.”

Lipscomb relied heavily on support from her family as a freshman. Her parents, Marvella and Richard, played a major role in her decision to attend USC.

“Staying close to home definitely worked out for me because my parents are important factors in my life,” Lipscomb said. “When I was down, I was able to go home and hug them instead of just calling them on the phone.”

Lipscomb’s parents attended most of her meets, with Marvella being her most vocal cheerleader.

“I just encouraged her to concentrate on what she’s doing and let her know to run for herself and not worry about what anyone else is doing,” Marvella Lipscomb said. “I told her to keep working hard for her goals and she’d be successful.”

As a sophomore, Lipscomb’s times improved. She won the 100 hurdles in a dual meet against UCLA in a personal-best time of 13.62 and also ran a career-best 59.44 in the 400 intermediate hurdles.

Lipscomb finished the season with a fourth-place finish in the intermediate hurdles and a fifth-place finish in the 100 hurdles in the Pac-10 meet in Eugene, Ore.

“I got better as a sophomore, but I still didn’t run as well as I had hoped,” Lipscomb said.

Lipscomb has responded to the challenge this season. The junior is regarded as the best hurdler in the Pac-10 and has the second-best time in the nation in the 100 hurdles.

“She is hungrier to succeed again,” USC assistant Mike Bailey said. “She came here pretty much the cream of the crop out of high school and she has had a rocky road. She’s really had to work hard and now she is hard to stop.

“She’s been running consistent times all season. She just had to get motivated.”

After missing nearly three weeks of practice time because of a heel bruise and hamstring injury, Lipscomb ran a wind-aided 13.76 to win the 100 hurdles last weekend in a meet at UC San Diego.

With a time of 13.56, Lipscomb is the hurdler to beat in the Pac-10.

“Basically, the key with me is mental,” Lipscomb said. “I seem to run better with competition. My goal is to win the Pac-10 and run 13.2 or 13.3.”

If Lipscomb does succeed in winning the 100 hurdles at the Pac-10 meet, she’ll thank her parents for helping her through her first two seasons.

“When she left high school, she was only 17 and was still a child,” Marvella Lipscomb said. “Now, she’s not a little girl any more. In the years that she has been in college, she has developed tremendously and I think that she realizes now that she made the best decision to stay close to home.”