Merritt’s Heave Puts Rivals Through Hoops

Darvena Merritt of North Hollywood High earned All-City Section 4-A Division honors in basketball last season, but she won’t be shooting hoops for some time if she continues to put the shot like she did in Friday’s Valley Pac-8 Conference track and field finals at Birmingham High.

The fourth-place finisher in the City championships as a sophomore, Merritt improved her personal best to 37 feet 4 inches as a junior last year and was regarded as the front-runner for the City title until she broke two fingers on her throwing hand in a pickup basketball game.

“After making it to City as a sophomore, I really wanted to win it all last year,” said Merritt, who won the Pac-8 title Friday with a heave of 42-0. “But the injury ended my season.”

Merritt has converted that disappointment into motivation and it has paid off. She cracked the 40-foot barrier last month and set a personal best on Friday.

It was the best mark by a City athlete since Erin McConahey of Van Nuys put the shot 42-2 3/4 in 1989. “I had no idea about the shotput when I started two years ago,” Merritt admitted. “But once I started competing, I began to get more serious. . . . Basketball had always been the No. 1 sport with me, but I like track more than basketball now.”

Merritt also placed second in the triple jump (32-10 1/4) and ran a leg on North Hollywood’s second-place 400-meter relay team (52.4 seconds) as the top five finishers in each event qualified for Thursday’s City preliminaries.

Birmingham, second in last year’s City championships, won eight of 15 events in the boys’ meet, led by James Lincoln’s three victories and Marvin Powell’s two.

Lincoln, a senior, was upset by Powell in the 110 high hurdles, 15.1 to 15.4, to start the meet, but he rebounded with victories in the high jump (6-2), long jump (personal best of 22-2 3/4) and triple jump (43-10).

Powell, a junior, added a victory in the 300 intermediate hurdles with a personal best of 41.5.

Monroe’s Jose Padilla ran 4 minutes 27 seconds in the 1,600 and 9:48.7 in the 3,200 to easily win those events.