County’s Winning Hand: Three Pairs

Six of the 14 Orange County athletes who qualified for today’s state track and field championships at Cerritos College will be competing against teammates.

Mission Viejo sisters Ashley and Dana Bethel will compete in the 100-meter high hurdles, Mission Viejo teammates Mark Gleason and Christian Kemp will run in the 1,600 final and Marina’s Katie Rorem and Caroline Rebello advanced in the pole vault.

“It’s awesome, we do everything together,” Rorem said.

Rorem and Rebello had cleared Friday’s qualifying height of 10-10, but Rorem and Rancho Bernardo’s Tracey O’Hara went after the meet record of 12-6 set by Melissa Price of Kingsburg in 1995. Rorem missed clearing 12-7 on both her tries, but O’Hara made it on her first attempt.

Rorem broke the Orange County record this season by clearing 12-1, but never tried 12-7 before Friday. She said the conditions weren’t the best for her first attempt at that height.

“If the wind is like this tomorrow, it’s all up to God,” she said. “If you watched the wind socks today, it was head wind, tail wind, head wind across, tail wind across. As long as it’s one way you can basically adjust, but when it goes back and forth it can be really tough.”

The Bethels will run together in the 4:40 p.m. final. Ashley Bethel overcame a slow start to win her heat in 14.40 and advance for the fourth consecutive season. Freshman Dana Bethel ran her fastest time of the season (14.31), finishing second in her heat to top qualifier Natasha Neal of Union City James Logan (13.61).

Gleason and Kemp will have a chance to battle it out once more in the 1,600. Kemp automatically qualified by finishing second in his heat (4:19.20). Gleason led the faster of the two heats until about 100 meters to go, then finished fourth and advanced with one of the top nine times (4:15.77).

“[The second heat] came by in 3:17 through 1,200 meters and I came by in a 3:09,” Gleason said. “I wanted to get out there and set the pace that I knew would qualify me and that’s just what I did.”

Trabuco Hills’ Darnesha Griffith will be busy today. She qualified in the high jump (5-6), long jump (17-10 1/4) and triple jump (38-6 3/4). Sunny Hills sophomore Stevie Nicholas also qualified in the high jump (5-6).

Other qualifiers were Dana Hills’ James Brown, who tied for the fourth-best time in the 110 hurdles (14.51), and Irvine’s Al Williams, who made the final in the 300 hurdles for the second consecutive season. Williams, who was third in state last season, won his heat with the state’s fastest time (37.14) this season.

Amanda Shanklin of Santa Margarita ran a season-best 43.74 to qualify in the 300 hurdles and Santosh Swamidass of El Modena qualified in the boys’ high jump (6-6).