DeSaussure, Serpas Advance to Finals of Scholastic Meet : High school track and field: Sprinters from Taft, Birmingham highs must improve times to have chance to win today at UCLA’s Drake Stadium.

On a night when the the number of canceled heats almost equaled the number of ones contested, Andre DeSaussure of Taft High and Tony Serpas of Birmingham advanced to the finals of their respective events in the National Scholastic Outdoor track and field championships at Birmingham High.

DeSaussure, who won all three sprints in last month’s City Section championships, won the second of two heats in the boys’ 400 in 48.72 seconds.

Serpas, runner-up in the 100 in the City meet, placed second in his heat of the 100 in 10.83 and was fourth in his heat of the 200 in 21.87. Serpas’ times came into head winds of 1.3 and 1.8 meters per second.

DeSaussure, who will run in the finals of the 200 and 400 in next Saturday’s state championships at Cerritos College, was disappointed with his performance.

“I’m kind of surprised with the time,” he said. “I was hoping to run a lot faster than that. I don’t know if I was just cruising or what, but it wasn’t very fast.”

Roger Lipkis, DeSaussure’s personal coach, told his protege not to worry.

“It didn’t look like you were pushing it at all,” Lipkis said to DeSaussure. “It looked to me like you pushed it for about the first 50 meters and that was it.”

DeSaussure, who has a personal best of 47.1 in the 400, said his goal is to break the 47-second barrier in today’s final at UCLA.

“It’s time for me to get into the 46s,” he said.

The Toreador junior probably will have to run in the 46.2 to 46.3 range if he wants to win as sophomore Jerome Young of Prince (Conn.) High cruised to a 47.66 clocking to win the first heat and has run 46.24 this season.

Sophomore Bryan Howard (10.54) of Canyon Springs and seniors Derrick Steagall (10.55) of Newnan (Ga.) and Tony McCall (10.56) of Ocalla Forrest (Fla.) established themselves as the athletes to watch in the 100 by winning their heats, but McCall appeared to pull up after the finish and he scratched from the 200.

Howard and Steagall also won the heats of the 200 in 21.23 and 21.27.

Alonzo Wiggins of William Penn (Pa.) and Blythe Hommes of Manhattan Christian (Mont.) won the finals of the boys’ 300 intermediate hurdles and the girls’ 300 lows.

Wiggins trailed Kevin Kelley of Quaker Town (Pa.) for the first 220 meters before surging into the lead at the seventh of eight hurdles to win in 36.97. Kelley timed 37.62, followed by Kevin Huntley of St. Joseph (Ohio) in 38.11.

Hommes, the Montana state champion, and Kim Veeder of Los Gatos were the only entrants in the girls’ 300 lows. They dueled back and forth for the first 250 meters before Hommes pulled away to win, 45.33 to 46.07.

Qualifying heats of the girls’ 100, 200 and 400 were canceled because there were nine entries or less in each event. UCLA’s Drake Stadium has a nine-lane track, so all of the entrants in those events automatically qualified for the finals.

Today’s events start at 11 a.m. with the qualifying heats of the boys’ and girls’ high hurdles. The finals in both the running and field events begin at 1:30.