Jones Leaves Her Mark in Triplicate

As emotional displays go, it was relatively mild. But when Marion Jones of Thousand Oaks High thrust her right arm into the air at the finish of the girls’ 200 meters in Saturday’s state track and field championships at Cerritos College, it served as an exclamation point on a remarkable high school career.

Jones, headed for North Carolina in the fall on a track-basketball scholarship, began her portion of the meet with a state record 22 feet 1/2 inch to win the long jump. She followed that with a 11.61-second clocking to take the 100, and capped it with her victorious time of 23.14 in the 200.

The three victories gave her an unprecedented nine individual state titles--the previous best was six by four athletes--during her career and made her the first girl to win four consecutive titles in the 100 and 200.

“I thought I would show a little emotion for once,” Jones said. “I could tell the crowd was really into the race, I felt good, and I thought they would enjoy it.”

Jones, who blew kisses to the crowd of 5,300 as it gave her a standing ovation during a victory lap after the 200, led Thousand Oaks to a third-place finish in the team standings with 30 points.

Long Beach Poly won its second consecutive title with 56 points, followed by Oakland Bishop O’Dowd with 37.

Quartz Hill, powered by triple jump champion Cheaza Figueroa, tied for sixth with 20 points.

Merced and North Salinas tied for their first titles in the boys’ meet with 36 points, followed by Pasadena Muir with 30.

Monroe, led by high jump champion Jeff Nadeau, and Reseda, powered by 110 high hurdle champion Drue Powell, were among seven teams that tied for eighth with 10 points.

Nadeau cleared 7-2 in the high jump to defeat Jeremy Fischer of Camarillo (7-1), and Powell ran a personal best of 13.87 in the 110 highs to win by more than three-tenths of a second.

Figueroa bounded a region record of 40-1 1/4 on her sixth--and final--attempt in the triple jump to turn back Vanitta Kinard of El Camino Real, who took the lead in the fifth stanza with a personal best of 39-9 1/2.

Figueroa also placed third in the long jump (wind-aided 19-0 3/4) and fourth in the 100 high hurdles (14.67).

“I feel very good about being able to win the way I did,” Figueroa said. “I consider it a honor to take part in this meet and to be able to finish among the top four in three different events.”

Anything less than three victories would have been a disappointment for Jones, whose effort in the long jump was 2 1/2 inches short of the national high school record of 22-3 set by Kathy McMillan of Hoke County (N.C.) High in 1976.

“That was definitely on my mind coming in here, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be,” Jones said. “It would have been nice to get that record, but I can’t complain. . . . Now I’m looking forward to spending the next four weeks lying in the sun and playing in the sand on the beaches in Belize.”

The boys’ high jump, which featured the state’s three leading performers in Nadeau (personal best of 7-2 1/4), Fischer (7-2) and Todd Kelly of Beiber Big Valley (7-1 1/2), produced one of the best competitions of the meet.

After the Big Three cleared 6-10 on their first attempts, Nadeau cleared 6-11 on his initial jump after Kelly and Fischer passed at that height.

All three cleared 7 feet on their first attempts before Nadeau took charge with a first-attempt clearance at 7-1.

Fischer, who has jumped 7 feet or higher in seven meets this year, cleared 7-1 on his third attempt, while Kelly missed three times.

Nadeau really applied the pressure with a second-attempt clearance at 7-2, and when Fischer missed his third attempt at that height, Nadeau became Monroe’s second individual state champion. Tim Quinn won the pole vault for the Vikings in 1971.

With the victory secured, Nadeau missed three times at 7-3 1/2, which would have been a meet record.

“I still can’t believe it,” Nadeau said. “I never thought about winning state coming into this meet. There are just too many good jumpers here. I just took the attitude that I was going to jump the best I could, and if that was good enough to win, that was good enough to win. If it wasn’t, it wasn’t.”

Powell, who finished third in the highs in last year’s state meet, pranced around like an excited colt after becoming Reseda’s first state track champion.

“I felt like I got out well, but I didn’t really know where the rest of the field was until after the finish,” Powell said. “You focus in on your own race so much that you don’t really know where everyone else is during the race.”

*

Andre DeSaussure of Taft finished second in the boys’ 400 with a personal best of 47.11. DeSaussure also finished fifth in the 200 before being disqualified for running out of his lane.

Margarito Casillas of Hoover (9 minutes 13.81 seconds in the boys’ 3,200), Gabriela Rodriguez of Oxnard (11:04.13 in the girls’ 3,200) and Cathy Prater of Agoura (45.29 in the girls’ 300 low hurdles) finished third in their events.

Hart junior Jason Medearis, a contender in both hurdles races, did not compete because he suffered a stress fracture in his left foot during a passing league football game Sunday.

The meet was originally scheduled for June 5, but a heavy rainstorm caused state officials to cancel the meet because of “unsafe conditions.” After a storm of protest, the meet was rescheduled last week.