Single-Minded Distance Aces Shift Course : Track and field: Casillas, Skieresz among five local runners to focus on one event at Masters Meet.

After working overtime to score as many points as possible for their respective teams last week, five of the region’s top distance runners, led by Margarito Casillas of Hoover High and Amy Skieresz of Agoura, will cut their racing in half tonight at the Masters Meet at Cerritos College.

Casillas, who won the boys’ 3,200 meters and placed second in the 1,600 in Saturday’s Southern Section Division I championships, will drop the 1,600 this week to focus on the 3,200. Skieresz, the Division I girls’ champion in the 1,600 and 3,200, will do the opposite, dropping the 3,200 in favor of the 1,600.

The top five finishers in each event will advance to next week’s state championships at Cerritos.

“We’re jettisoning the last booster stage and we’re going to see how far the capsule will take us,” Hoover Coach Greg Switzer said of Casillas. “He ran well in the 3,200 last week after running a (personal best) in the 1,600. Now we’re going to see how fast he can run when he’s fresh.”

Casillas, the 1992 state Division I cross-country champion, ran a season-best 9 minutes 6.92 seconds in the 3,200 last week after timing a personal-best 4:15.63 to finish second in the 1,600 behind Ryan Wilson (4:14.29) of Agoura. With the 1,600 no longer on Casillas’ racing itinerary, Switzer figures that Casillas can become the 11th athlete from the region--and the second from Hoover--to run under nine minutes in the 3,200. “That’s certainly a goal of ours,” Switzer said. “We feel that is possible with the 1,600 out of the way.”

Hart sophomore Brett Strahan, Agoura junior Kay Nekota and Nordhoff senior Karen Bockel are the other runners from the region who qualified for the Masters Meet in the 1,600 and the 3,200, but are expected to drop one.

Strahan and Nekota will run in the boys’ and girls’ 1,600, respectively, and Bockel will compete in the girls’ 3,200.

Bockel’s decision comes as a surprise because the 1,600 is considered her better event, but Nordhoff Coach Ken Reeves said that the German native is concentrating on the longer event so that she will be in top form for the 1,500 when the German Junior (age 19 and under) championships are run in July.

Marion Jones of Thousand Oaks, Cheaza Figueroa of Quartz Hill, Jason Medearis of Hart and Jamal Chase of Quartz Hill are among the athletes competing in multiple events. Jones, who won her eighth, ninth and 10th individual section titles in the girls’ 100, 200 and long jump in the Division I meet, will compete in those events and run the anchor leg on the Lancers’ 1,600 relay team.

Figueroa, the Division I champion in the girls’ 100 high hurdles and the triple jump, will compete in those events and in the long jump.

Medearis will run in the 110 high hurdles and the 300 intermediates; Chase will compete in the long jump and triple jump.

Field events will begin at 5:30; running events will start at 7.