STATE TRACK AND FIELD CHAMPIONSHIPS : Tift Puts Distance Between Herself and the Field

Newport Harbor’s Wade Tift and Esperanza’s Kristy Kierulff are the leading qualifiers in their events for this weekend’s State track and field championships at Cerritos College.

Tift, who won the shotput at last week’s Masters meet with a throw of 59 feet 8 1/2 inches, leads all qualifiers by more than two feet with his personal-best throw of 61-6 in the Sea View League finals.

Kierulff, the 1992 State champion in the high jump, has reached a personal-best of 5-10 3/4 this season, and enters the State meet as the favorite based on her winning jump of 5-10 at the Masters.

Jaime Martinez of Orange will compete in the 3,200-meter race against San Diego High’s Mebrahtom Keflezighi, who was runner-up last year at the Kinney National Cross-Country Championships. Keflezighi ran a state-leading time of 9:03.27 to win the San Diego Section title, and Martinez, a senior, won at the Masters in 9:06.08.

Gary Young of Woodbridge and Mel Lete of Saddleback are looking to close out their prep careers in style. Young, the county’s 100 and 200 meters champion, has run the 100 in 10.52 (wind-aided) and the 200 in 21.39. Lete finished fourth in the 300 intermediate hurdles at the Masters to advance to the State meet for the second consecutive year. The county champion has run a 37.62 this spring.

Buena Park’s Carrie Garritson, who along with Young and Esperanza’s Courtney Pugmire are the only county athletes to qualify in two events, is expected to battle Julie Stamps, a ninth-grader at Santa Rosa Rincon Valley Junior High, in the 3,200. Garritson will also run the 1,600, in which she has the county’s top time of 5:01.90.

Four county athletes advanced in the girls’ 800, led by Edison senior Julie Koudelka and Laguna Hills junior Tiffany Boykin. Koudelka has run 2:12.99 and Boykin 2:13.83. Pugmire and Santa Margarita freshman Katie Nuanes also will be in the 800 field.

Foothill junior Tara Oettinger, the county champion in four events, will participate in the long jump after winning the Southern Section title with an 18-7 mark.

Newport Harbor seniors Gina Heads and Steve Gonzales are expected to be strong contenders in the throwing events. Heads, a four-time qualifier in the shot, has the state’s third-best mark this season. She qualified fourth in the discus. Gonzales, the Sea View and county discus champion, posted the seventh-best mark entering the meet with a personal best of 177-9.

Edison sophomores Kerry O’Bric (triple jump) and Marie Philman (discus) have qualifying marks among the state’s top eight.

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Qualifying begins today in all events except the boys’ and girls’ 3,200. Boys’ discus is up first at 3 p.m., followed by field events beginning at 4 and running events at 5.

Saturday’s championships begin with the field events at 3 p.m. and running events starting at 4.

Ticket prices are $7 general admission today and $8 on Saturday. Children 13 and younger are $2 each day. Prices for students with high school IDs are $3 today and $4 on Saturday.

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Two of the country’s top female pole vaulters will put on a vaulting exhibition at Saturday’s State finals.

Melissa Price of Kingsburg High, the national leader with a vault of 11-1, and Jocelyn Chase of Agoura High, whose vault of 10-6 is second only to Price’s, are scheduled to pole vault immediately after the conclusion of the boys’ event, sometime around 6 p.m.

Though girls began participating in pole vaulting in California last year, the event is not listed in the National Federation Track and Field Rules Book.