Lee Races Until City Title Is His

There was no fist-pumping or finger-waving and very few high-fives.

The moment meant too much to Charles Lee of Cleveland High, who had come from behind to win the boys’ 200 meters in the City Section track and field championships at Birmingham High on Thursday night.

Instead, the Cavalier senior shook hands with family members and friends and fought back tears of joy while being interviewed by reporters. The victory had given him a measure of redemption.

“I had to win,” Lee said. “I was really down on myself after the 400 relay and the 100. But my coach just told me to forget about the relay and the 100 and it worked. I relaxed in the 200, worked the turn and I’m the City champion.”

Lee trailed 100 champion Kaaron Conwright of Westchester and favored Clarence Scott of Fremont coming off the turn in the 200, but drew even with the pair with 50 meters left and pulled away to time 21.58 seconds to Conwright’s 21.67. Scott, who ran 21.27 in the prelims, was third in 21.88.

“I just told him to relax,” Cleveland Coach Bill Paden. “He and the other guys were just too uptight after the 400 relay. They thought they had a chance to win and when they didn’t, they got down.”

Still, the Cavalier foursome of Russel Burwell, Damon Williams, Raunaq Savur and Lee timed a school-record 41.79.

Lee was favored in the 100 after timing a personal best of 10.4 last week, but Conwright pulled away from him in the final 40 meters to post a 10.75 to 10.85 victory.

The victory in the 200 seemed to rejuvenate Lee. He finished the evening with a 49.3 anchor leg in the 1,600 relay to help Cleveland place sixth in a region-leading time of 3 minutes 21.66 seconds.

The Cavaliers placed sixth in the team standings with 29 points.

Westchester, led by Conwright, totaled 46 points to win its first City title. Crenshaw and Fremont tied for second with 32 points.

San Fernando’s Steve Williams, North Hollywood’s Ryan Jones and Birmingham’s Edward Nghiem were the other area winners.

Williams won the triple jump with a school-record 49 feet 1 inch to move to fifth on the all-time region list. He also placed third in the long jump (22-10 1/2), sixth in the 110 high hurdles (15.56) and seventh in the high jump (6-2).

Jones timed a region-leading 14.62 to win the high hurdles and ran 38.71 to place second in the 300 intermediate hurdles.

Nghiem equaled his best of 13-6 to win the pole vault.

Neisha Henderson of Cleveland and Brandi Page of Granada Hills led five area winners in the girls’ meet. Henderson won the triple jump with a mark of 37-1 1/2 and finished third in the long jump with a personal best of 17-2 3/4.

Page won the 1,600 in 5:20.95 and finished third in the 3,200 in 11:58.65. Marisol Barajas of Van Nuys posted an upset victory with a personal best of 11:50.65.

Dorsey totaled 63 1/2 points to win its second title in four years. The Dons were followed by Washington (56), Taft (41), Westchester (38) and Chatsworth (31).

Taft’s Crystal Griffin won the high jump (5-0) and Francis Santin placed second in the 300 low hurdles (personal best 45.90).

Chatsworth junior Kim Pickup won the pole vault (8-0), placed fourth in the long jump (16-10 3/4) and the high jump (4-10) and was fifth in the triple jump (35-3).