Hawkins Wins Three Events but Newbury Park Loses Out

DaJuan Hawkins of Newbury Park High won three events in the Marmonte League track and field championships at Camarillo High on Friday night, but the Panthers fell short in their quest to win their first outright league title.

Newbury Park defeated defending league champion Thousand Oaks in a triangular meet earlier this season, but the Lancers came from behind to post a 139-127 victory and share the league title with the Panthers.

“The kids rose to the occasion,” Thousand Oaks Coach Dan Murphy said. “They stepped it up when they had to.”

After trailing by 10 points midway through the meet, the Lancers tied the score, 93-93, when Dave Garrett won the 300-meter intermediate hurdles in 39.84 seconds, the best time of his career.

But Newbury took a 105-93 lead in the next event as Hawkins won the triple jump at 44-9 and Eddie Patterson finished at 40-6.

Hawkins cleared a personal best of 6-8 in the high jump to upset defending league champion Josh Hill of Camarillo and he followed that with a career-best 23-0 1/2 to win the long jump.

“I was really just hoping to win all three events,” Hawkins said. “I just got in a zone in the high jump. I just kept going up and up like I was trying to catch a pass in football.”

Thousand Oaks countered Hawkins’ triple-jump victory with two of their own to take the lead for good with two events left.

Scott Feiereisen clocked 22.5 in the 200 to avenge a loss to Newbury Park’s Patrick Reddick in the 100, and Todd Disney ran 9:40.98 in the 3,200 to give Thousand Oaks a 122-119 lead.

Josh Carolan, who ran a career-best of 4:24.39 in the 1,600, and Garrett, who ran a wind-aided 14.83 in the 110 high hurdles, posted the other individual victories for Thousand Oaks.

“We just didn’t have quite enough oomph,” Newbury Park Coach Mike Stewart said to an assistant.

Thousand Oaks rolled to its third consecutive girls’ title and 16th in 19 years with 155 points. Simi Valley and Newbury Park tied for second with 84 points.

Kim Mortensen turned in a superb double victory for the Lancers, winning the 1,600 in 4 minutes 51.46 seconds and the 3,200 in 10:11.63.

Jenna Baum set a Thousand Oaks record of 9-6 to win the pole vault. Crystal Crawford won the shotput title at 37-1 and Jenn Detmer added the high jump at 5-4 for the Lancers.

Newbury Park had a 27-12 lead over Thousand Oaks after three events, but after Baum and teammate Ami Desai went 1-2 in the pole vault, the Lancers had the lead for good, 30-29.

Mortensen, freshman Amanda Armstrong (5:14.38) and senior Tara Marsden (5:20.95) followed with a 1-2-4 finish in the 1,600 and the Lancers were off and running.