It Wasn’t the Time of His Life

Matt Lea of Camarillo High minced no words about his second-place finish in the Division I 400-meter race Saturday in the Southern Section track and field championships at Cerritos College.

Lea, a senior, had clocked a personal best of 47.38 seconds to win the Ventura County title on May 1, but he ran only 48.73 on Saturday to finish behind Chino sophomore Travon Walton, who timed 48.35.

“I just ran horrible,” Lea said after losing his first 400 of the season. “I went out way too slow in the first 250 or 300 meters. I knew after the first 250 that I was in trouble.”

Lea had withdrawn from the 200 in the preliminaries on May 16 because of a sore quadriceps, but he said that had nothing to do with his performance.

“I’m just putting too much pressure on myself to win every race,” he said. “I need to just start concentrating on running my own race and not worrying about what the other guys around me are doing.”

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Top 10 performers in the 400 meters

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Time Individual School Year 46.67 Quincy Watts Taft ’88 46.74c Ron Williams Chatsworth ’77 47.11 Andre DeSaussure (1) Taft ’93 47.0c Forrest Beaty Hoover ’62 47.38 Matt Lea Camarillo ’98 47.49 Ramsey Jay (1) Ventura ’94 47.51c Greg Peppers (1) Birmingham ’79 47.4 Blaine Bussey (1) Taft ’98 47.56c Bill Hunt North Hollywood ’75 47.61 Benji Green Kennedy ’84

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c -- Mark is converted from a 440-yard time. Times in hundredths are fully automatic. To convert hand times to fully automatic times, add .14.

(1) -- junior