Plan in Works to Reschedule State Finals : Track and field: After taking criticism for canceling championships, CIF considers holding meet June 19 at Cerritos.

The finals of the 1993 state high school track and field championships at Cerritos College, which were canceled because of rain Saturday, might be rescheduled for June 19 at Cerritos.

Hal Harkness, the City Section commissioner, said Wednesday that a representative from the Central Coast Section has approached CIF commissioner Thomas Byrnes with a proposal to hold the meet at Cerritos.

“An announcement could be made as early as (today),” Harkness said. “We basically want to see if there is enough interest and enough athletes available to hold a state championship meet which is worthy of that name.”

Byrnes made the decision to cancel the meet at 1:45 p.m. Saturday after reviewing the recommendation of a five-member track advisory committee. The committee, which included Harkness, and Dean Crowley, the Southern Section associate commissioner, said that “substantial numbers of adverse conditions existed that would place in jeopardy the health and safety of the competing student-athletes.”

The cancellation enraged athletes and coaches because it stopped raining by 2 and the meet was not scheduled to start until 3.

The sun came out shortly thereafter and by 4 o’clock, weather conditions were ideal and the track was drying out, according to several coaches who were at Cerritos.

Harkness said that if a state championship meet is held, the CIF has agreed in principle to pay for either all or a portion of the travel costs for athletes and coaches who make the trip to Cerritos from long distances.

The schools or booster clubs usually pay travel costs.

The City Section office faxed a questionnaire Wednesday to representatives of its 17 member schools who qualified athletes for the finals, but Harkness was out of the office all day and did not know what the findings were.

“We hope to have an answer from each school by 11 o’clock (this morning),” Harkness said.

Coaches Steve Caminiti of Reseda, Mel Hein of Taft and Scott King of Birmingham each said Wednesday that they are willing to have their athletes compete in a rescheduled meet.

Drue Powell of Reseda would be one of the favorites in the boys’ 110-meter high hurdles and Andre DeSaussure of Taft has qualified for the finals of the boys’ 200 and 400.

Birmingham’s Alvaro Mejia (3,200 meter) and James Lincoln (high jump) also qualified for the finals.

“It never should have come to this,” Caminiti said. “But at least someone is admitting that they made a mistake.”

Hein concurred.

“That would be good news if they can reschedule it,” he said. “I think most of the athletes from Southern California, at least, would be more than happy to compete.”

If the meet is rescheduled, it would affect more than 320 athletes from 169 schools statewide, including 23 athletes from 18 schools in the region.

Marion Jones of Thousand Oaks High, three-time defending state champion in the girls’ 100 and 200 meters, was favored to win unprecedented seventh, eighth and ninth titles in the 100, 200 and long jump.