Mortensen’s 3,000 Time Is Best by a Prep Since ’85

She ran 4 minute 53 seconds in the indoor mile in February, 10:17 in the 3,200 meters in March and 4:44.9 in the 1,600 the Arcadia Invitational on April 13, yet none of those performances braced Kim Mortensen of Thousand Oaks High for what she accomplished Saturday before an estimated crowd of 5,000 at the Mt. San Antonio College Relays.

Mortensen, the 1995 national cross-country champion, and Li Jien of China staged a scintillating duel in the girls’ 3,000 meters before finishing in a dead heat with a time of 9 minutes 15.89 seconds.

The time was the fastest by a U.S. high school runner since 1985 and moved Mortensen to sixth on the all-time national list.

Jack Farrell, the distance coach at Thousand Oaks, had told Mortensen to let Jien push the pace for the first few laps, but Mortensen took the lead immediately.

Jien bided her time behind Mortensen before surging into the lead with a lap left. She opened a five-meter gap on Mortensen, but the UCLA-bound runner cut her deficit to two meters entering the homestretch and caught Jien at the line with a sprinters’ lean.

Mortensen’s performance was one of several national leaders and one of two to move into the top 15 on the all-time national list.

The other was turned in by the Yucaipa girls in the 4 x 1,600 relay. The foursome of Mindy Brown, Christin Ray, Vickie Whiteside and Kimi Welsh timed 20:47.92 to finish second behind Mexico (20:35.34) and move to 12th on the all-time national list.

Sophomores Miguel Fletcher of Alemany and Angela Williams of Chino ran 21.06 and 23.56 in the boys’ and girls’ 200, respectively, and junior Sharif Paxton on Crenshaw timed 13.77 in the boys’ 110 high hurdles.