Long Beach Poly Wins Boys’ Title

The drought is finally over for the Long Beach Poly High boys’ track and field team.

After going 33 years since winning their last Southern Section title, the Jackrabbits ran away from the competition to win the Division I title in the divisional championships at Cerritos College on Saturday.

Long Beach Poly, led by junior sprinters Darrell Rideaux, Kareen Kelly and Samie Parker and senior distance runner Chad Durham, totaled 82 points to easily defeat second-place Chino, which had 37.

It was the sixth section title for the Jackrabbits, but their first since 1965.

“This meet meant a lot to us,” Rideaux said. “Even though we won state last year, we didn’t win [a Southern Section title], so we felt we had something to prove.”

Long Beach Poly, which had finished second to Pasadena Muir from 1994-97, scored a stunning 46 points in the 100 and 200 meters.

Kelly, Rideaux and Parker placed 1-2-3 in the 200 after Rideaux, Kelly and Parker had gone 1-2-4 in the 100 earlier in the meet.

Rideaux’s 10.36 clocking in the 100 was a personal best, tied him for the yearly state lead with Mission Hills Alemany’s Miguel Fletcher and gave him a .03 margin of victory over Kelly.

Kelly then came back to win the 200 in a wind-aided 20.53 with Rideaux at 21.09 and Parker at 21.50.

Those three had teamed up with Aaron Smith to win the 400 relay in 41.05 in the first track event of the meet and Kelly and Parker capped the meet by running legs on the Jackrabbit 1,600-meter relay team that placed second in 3:18.53.

That performance came shortly after Durham won the 3,200 in a personal best of 9:12.60.

“I feel this is one of the best groups they’ve ever had at Poly,” Kelly said. “We’ve worked real hard.”

Long Beach Wilson defeated Moore League rival Long Beach Poly, 84-74, for the Division I girls’ title.

It was the second title in the last three years for the Bruins and the seventh year in a row that Long Beach Wilson or Poly has won the girls’ title.

Freshman Lashinda Demus led Long Beach Wilson by winning the 400 in 53.39, the 100 high hurdles in a wind-aided 14.20 and the 300 lows in 42.09.

She also ran a 52.5-second anchor leg on the Bruins’ 1,600-meter relay team that clocked a winning 3:39.19, the eighth-fastest time ever by a U.S. high school team.

Fletcher and senior Angela Williams of Chino each turned in superb sprint doubles in their respective divisions.

Fletcher, runner-up in the 100 in the 1997 state championships, edged defending state champion Justin Fargas of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, 10.36-10.37, in the Division III 100 and took the 200 in 20.95.

Williams, the defending state champion in the girls’ 100, clocked a wind-aided 11.16 to win that event by more than four-tenths of a second and her wind-aided 22.89 clocking in the 200 gave her a .61-second margin of victory.

Williams also finished second in the long jump with a wind-aided 19-10 3/4. Poly’s Bumni Ogunleye won with a wind-aided jump of 19-11 1/4.