Littlerock, Palmdale Make It a Golden Day

The Golden League will be well-represented in next Saturday’s CIF Southern Section Division I finals, based on results from Saturday’s preliminaries held at Veterans Stadium in Long Beach.

Littlerock senior Sheree Hicks was a double winner, throwing the discus 137 feet 1 inch and putting the shot 41-11.

Hicks showed the consistency needed to win a section championship as her second-best mark in the discus was 135-2--better than second-place Marie Philman of Edison, who threw 134-5--and her second best put was 41-8.

“I just tried to do enough to qualify,” Hicks said. “I wasn’t trying to, quote, win.”

The Palmdale girls won their heat in the 400-meter relay at 47.76 seconds and came back to win the 1600-meter relay in 3:57.90.

Palmdale Coach Steve Wilson stresses the team aspect, and appropriately enough the relay team members did not qualify in all of the individual events in which they were entered.

Palmdale sophomore Kadrina Coffee won her 400-meter heat at 55.64 to advance. Coffee, who anchored both relays, coming up with an extra burst of speed to beat out Muir in the 1600 relay, will be an alternate in the 200 meters after her 25.61 effort.

Edniesha Curry, who ran the third leg of Palmdale’s 400-meter relay, triple-jumped 35-2 to make the finals.

Tranisha Holmes, who ran the second leg on both the 400 and 1,600 relays, qualified for the 100 at 12.33 but missed out in the 200 by finishing third in 25.62.

Palmdale junior Monique Nolan ran on both relays, but her 48.05 clocking in the 300-meter hurdles was only good enough to make her an alternate for the final.

Jameka Taylor of Littlerock finished fifth in the triple jump at 36-11 1/2 and sixth in the long jump at 17-10.

Lafayette Bailey of the Lobos advanced in the boys’ long jump with a second-place leap of 22-3.

Kim Mortensen of Thousand Oaks coasted to qualifying times of 4:55.09 in the 1,600 and 10:31.53 in the 3,200, winning both events after being told by Coach Jack Farrell not to push herself this week.

Mortensen was joined by Lancer teammate Amanda Armstrong, a freshman, who qualified in the 1,600 at 5:13.96.