Sickler Rises to Occasion

The Heather Sickler personal-best learning curve rose another two inches in Friday’s Southern Section Masters Meet at Veterans Stadium.

The Camarillo High junior, who had a personal best of 7 feet 6 inches in the girls’ pole vault at this time last year, continued her amazing ascent up the national ladder by clearing a region and meet record of 12-3 1/2 before missing three times at a national high school federation record of 12-7 1/4.

Sickler’s winning height moved her to sixth on the all-time national list and broke the region record of 12-1 1/2 that she set in winning the Division I title in last week’s Southern Section championships, but her best vault might have come at 12 feet, a height she cleared by seven or eight inches.

“I think my jump at 12 feet was the best of all my jumps,” she said.

Sickler’s performance overshadowed a national high school sophomore record of 12 feet by second-place Bridget Pearson of Hoover and gave her plenty of momentum heading into the state championships next Friday and Saturday in Sacramento.

“It helps. It helps a lot,” said Sickler, when asked if Friday’s meet was a confidence booster for the state meet.

Sickler looked superb all night, clearing 10-6, 11-0, 11-6, 12-0 and 12-3 1/2 before missing three times at 12-7 1/4.

“I could have rocked back a little bit more and that would have allowed me to get upside down more,” Sickler said of her attempts at the national-record height. “But it was fun.”

Sickler was one of five athletes from the region who won events in the meet, in which the top five finishers in each event advanced to the state championships.

Michelle Perry of Quartz Hill, Ryan Meuse of Simi Valley, Andrea Neipp of Highland and Elaine Canchola of Nordhoff were the others.

The UCLA-bound Perry won the girls’ long jump with a wind-aided 19-3 1/2, placed third in the 100-meter high hurdles in a wind-aided 13.82 and finished fourth in the 100 in a wind-aided 11.72 to advance to the state meet in three events, but her mind was on the 300 low hurdles.

That’s the race in which she was disqualified from for a trail leg violation last week after finishing second in the Division I race of the section finals. It’s also the race in which she finished third in last year’s state championships.

“I just don’t think it was fair,” Perry said of her disqualification. “I should be out there running in that race right now. I’ll get to run in the 400 hurdles this summer, but I would like to have run the 300s at state.”

Meuse, a junior, won the boys’ 800 in 1:54.40 to ease the pain of a disappointing second-place finish in the Division I finals.

“It was important for me to win because I didn’t win last week,” said Meuse, who ran 1:52.57 earlier this year. “I got beat so I felt like I had to prove that I could run well tonight.”

Meuse was in third place after a 56-second first lap, but he took the lead entering the backstretch, fell back to third with 200 meters to go and then kicked to victory in the homestretch.

Neipp, a senior headed for Brigham Young, had hoped to lower her yearly national-leading time of 10:19.55 in the girls’ 3,200, but she had to settle for a 10:23.34 clocking.

Neipp came through the first 1,600 in 5:03.2, but she was unable to maintain that pace.

Behind her, Canyon sophomore Lauren Fleshman and Nordhoff junior Elaine Canchola set school records of 10:38.13 and 10:45.84 to finish second and fourth.

Canchola won the 1,600 in 4:55.34 earlier in the meet.

After pulling away from La Canada senior Sarah Ellis in the final 150 meters of the Division III final, Canchola won easily Friday.

As usual, she pushed the pace from the start, clocking 70.7 at 400 meters, 2:26.5 at 800 and 3:42.3 at 1,200. She had a 1 1/2-second lead over second-place Ellis at that point and increased it to more than seven seconds by the finish as Ellis clocked 5:02.38.

In addition to Canchola, junior Justin Fargas and senior Chris Forde of Notre Dame and junior Miguel Fletcher of Alemany qualified for the state championships in two events.

Fargas finished third in the 100 in a wind-aided 10.45--with Fletcher fifth in 10.50--and he also brought Notre Dame from seventh to fifth on the anchor leg of the 1,600 relay to help the Knights run 3:18.01.

Forde ran a leg on that relay after finishing fourth in the 400 in 48.13.

Fletcher followed his fifth-place finish in the 100 with a fourth-place time of 21.40 in the 200.

Arizona-bound Liz Giltner of Chaminade and sophomore Tiffany Thompson were two other performers from the Mission League who advanced to the state meet.

Giltner, the defending state champion in the girls’ high jump, placed second in that event at 5-4 and Thompson placed third in the 200 with a wind-aided 24.01 after finishing seventh in the 100 with a wind-aided 11.91.

Seniors Bridie Hatch of Nordhoff and Brad Hegemier of L.A. Baptist were notable nonqualifiers.

Hatch had run a school-record 2:13.21 in the 800 to win the Division III title in the section championships, but she placed seventh in 2:16.70 on Friday.

She was in second place behind Summer Shaw of Huntington Beach after the first 400, but she dropped to fourth entering the backstretch and had fallen to sixth entering the homestretch.

The race was particularly disappointing for Hatch because it was her last chance to advance to the state championships.

She had advanced to the Masters Meet the previous three years in the 300 low hurdles, but she had been unable to finish among the top five, missing that magic spot by .01 seconds in 1994.

Hegemier had run a career best of 4:18.57 to win the boys’ 1,600 in the section finals, but he finished ninth in 4:35.30.