TRACK AND FIELD / JOHN ORTEGA : Coffee Back in Fast Lane for L.A. Jets

Kadrina Coffee of Palmdale High has taken the term late-season charge to another level.

While most of the region’s top performers have hung up their spikes for the summer, the Falcon freshman has been on a tear since an asthma attack limited her to a seventh-place finish in the 400 meters in last month’s Southern Section Division I championships.

She helped Palmdale to a school-record time of 3 minutes 47.78 seconds to place fifth in the 1,600 relay in the State championships June 3 and has followed that with four consecutive personal bests in the 400 as a member of the Los Angeles Jets Track Club.

Coffee, who’d run a then-season best of 56.47 to finish fifth in the Arcadia Invitational in April, ran 55.98 and 55.20 in the heats and final of the USA Track & Field Region 13 meet at Cal State Long Beach on June 16-17.

She ran 55.15 in her heat of the USA Track & Field junior (age 14-19) championships at Mt. San Antonio College last Friday before unloading a 53.96 stunner in Saturday’s final.

The runner-up clocking earned Coffee a spot on the U.S. team that will compete in the Junior Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, Sept. 1-3. It also moved her to fourth on the all-time region list and into seventh on the all-time national freshman list.

“I was expecting the high 54s and a 53 just popped up,” Coffee said. “I just skipped the 54s. That surprised me.”

It also sent her into a fit of joy when her time was announced. The usually reserved Coffee jumped up and down before bounding around the track.

“That was nice to see,” said Jet Coach James Robertson, who is also Coffee’s uncle.

“That’s as excited as I’ve ever seen her. She’s so laid back and nonchalant that it’s hard to get a read on her sometimes. You’re not sure if she’s out there having a good time or if she’s just doing it because it’s something to do. The other day, she was definitely having a good time.”

Some of Coffee’s calm exterior could stem from the fact that she’d had so much success at an early age. She ran 57.10 as a 12-year-old in 1992 and improved to 56.20 last year.

“She might have been resting on her laurels a little the last two years,” said Johnna Jenkins, Coffee’s mother. “But there has definitely been a change in her attitude the last few weeks.”

Coffee attributed her rapid improvement to tougher workouts in the last month. Robertson added that her failure to qualify for the Southern Section Masters Meet in the 400 gave her a needed break from individual competition.

“I think she was starting to feel the pressures of running the open 400 at the [Southern Section championships],” Robertson said. “I think that might have triggered the asthma. Running only the relay for a couple of weeks seemed to rejuvenate her.”

Coffee is set to compete in Joplin, Mo., Las Vegas, San Jose, Des Moines and Miami in the coming weeks before departing for Santiago.

“I don’t see fatigue being a problem,” Robertson said.

“We work out a lot, but we only run hard twice a week. The other days are spent doing recovery-type workouts that help the muscles relax. Based on her workouts, I still think she can run faster. I really believe that she can go about 53-flat by the end of the season.”

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Disappointing second: Like Coffee, Wisconsin freshman Jeremy Fischer earned a place on the U.S. junior team with a second-place finish at Mt. SAC. But unlike her, he was “highly disappointed” with his 7-foot effort in the men’s high jump.

Fischer cleared a season best of 7-2 1/2 to finish third in the invitational division of the Mt. SAC Relays in April, but has lacked the consistency of last year when he cleared 7-feet or higher in 11 meets--topped by a best of 7-4--as a Camarillo High senior.

“It’s just been a real frustrating year,” Fischer said. “It’s been good because I’m training three times as hard, but I’ve lacked consistency. . . . In high school, I got into a rhythm and this year, I never really got into that rhythm 100%.”

Adjusting to a longer, slower approach to the bar and suffering a hyperextended back in February hasn’t helped, but Fischer refrains from using those as excuses for failing to meet his own high expectations.

“I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I really thought that winning [the Big 10 championship] four years in a row and being an All-American all four years was a possibility,” Fischer said. “I mean, based on what I did last year, that was well within my reach.”

Instead, Fischer cleared a paltry 6-8 3/4 to finish seventh in the Big 10 meet and did not qualify for the NCAA championships, which Arkansas’ Ray Doakes won at 7-4 1/2.

He is optimistic about the Junior Pan American Games. Although his 7-0 effort was 2 1/2 inches lower than his winning jump in last year’s USA junior championships, he figures a personal best is attainable in Santiago.

“My goal is to [set a personal best] at that meet,” Fischer said. “I just want to get to that meet, jump well, and then take a break and start getting ready for next year.”

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Tight finish: Decathlon competitions don’t come much closer than the USA junior meet as one point separated first and second place and there was only a six-point difference between first and third.

Unfortunately for Danny Haag of Northridge, his personal best of 7,148 points left him third, one place shy of the two qualifying spots for the Junior Pan American Games team.

“I was really disappointed when I found out that I didn’t make the team,” said Haag, the 1994 City Section champion in the 110 high hurdles for Granada Hills High. “But I ran as hard as I could in the 1,500. I just came up a little short.”

Haag’s 4:44.01 clocking in the 1,500 was his third personal best--and his fifth decathlon best--in the 10-event, two-day endeavor, and qualified him to compete in the USA-Canada Junior meet in Windsor, Ontario, July 16-20. Still, he’s haunted by the fact that a time of 4:43.01 would have been worth seven more points and given him the victory.

His goal is to make the top 10 all-time U.S. junior list (7,264 points) in the meet against Canada and in the process earn a scholarship to a four-year school.

Haag had fulfilled the academic requirements to attend an NCAA Division I school upon graduation from high school, but opted to compete at the club level this season in hopes of landing an athletic scholarship.

Texas A&M;, Louisiana State, Cal State Northridge and Cal State Long Beach have expressed interest in him, but he has his sights set on UCLA or USC.

“Ideally, I’d like to stay in Southern California and attend one of those two schools,” he said. “But a lot depends on what they can offer me compared to the others.”