Esperanza Won’t Be Thrown for Loss

The flashbacks come sporadically for Carolyn Pendleton, but what she doesn’t remember, some of her Esperanza High track and field teammates may never forget.

Pendleton was retrieving a discus from the landing area during practice last spring when she committed a cardinal sin among throwers. Pendleton had her back to the throwing area when a teammate released a 3 1/2-pound metal-rimmed disc, which sailed toward his unwary friend about 150 feet away.

“We saw it heading for her and we yelled to watch out,” sophomore Ashley Parrish said. “But she turned around right into it.”

The discus slammed into Pendleton’s face, smashing her maxillary sinus wall and opening two gashes under her left eye, which required plastic surgery.

The impact knocked her unconscious for a brief time, and she badly chipped her two front teeth when she fell face-first.

“It knocked her off her feet and then she got up and fell down again,” said senior Kristen Thompson. “It was pretty scary, especially the second time she fell down.”

Pendleton’s father, Bill, who coaches the Esperanza throwers, rushed to his daughter’s side and hurried her to the hospital. Parrish remembers that Carolyn never cried. Carolyn barely remembers anything.

“I remember trying to get off the ground,” she said. “I remember getting into my dad’s car and asking him like four times in a row what happened, and I remember sliding into a little tube for the CAT scan.”

Unbelievably, the accident would have been worse had Pendleton not turned around.

“The worst thing is to get hit in the back of your head,” Bill Pendleton said. “All the time we’re talking about safety. We tell them, ‘You wouldn’t walk across the street with your eyes closed, would you?’ She has been around the discus all her life, but she’s one of worst as far as paying attention.”

Pendleton, who finished third in the Southern Section Division I finals as a freshman, returned less than two weeks after the accident for the Sunset League finals, but her season ended at the section preliminaries.

Pendleton’s return to the ring this season is a big boost for the second-ranked Aztecs, who boast the strongest throwing corps in the county and one of the best in the state. Although a slight 115 pounds, Pendleton, who her father said looks more like a “3,200 runner,” threw a personal-best 126 feet 3 1/4 inches as a freshman, slightly better than her top mark last season (124-1).

“She kind of [reached a plateau] after her freshman season,” Bill Pendleton said. “It’s hard for her to make a big jump up because she’s just so much smaller than most others. Her claim to fame is she throws farther than her weight.”

Thompson, who signed to play volleyball and participate in track and field at UC Riverside next season, made a huge jump between her sophomore and junior seasons. She broke school records and had the county’s leading marks in the shotput (41-2 1/2) and discus (136-9) last season. She finished second in the Division I finals in the discus, fifth at Masters and seventh in state, improving her personal best by 4 1/2 feet in the state prelims.

It was a nice improvement over Thompson’s sophomore season, when her top mark was 118-0 in the discus and 36-10 in the shotput.

The Aztecs should also get some points from Parrish, whose father, Lance, is a former major league baseball player. Bill Pendleton said Parrish is already further along than Thompson was as a sophomore.

“It’s a real good group,” he said. “They’re a little bit young, but it’s as good a group as I’ve had.”

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Other teams to watch:

Amanda Shanklin produced her share of points for Santa Margarita, including eight individual league titles and three section titles in her final two seasons.

With Shanklin now competing for Harvard, it left a big hole in the hurdles and horizontal jumps. Fortunately for Santa Margarita Coach Gil Garcia, he doesn’t need to worry about most other events.

Lori Mann, who finished second in the 3,200 at the Orange County Championships and third in the Division II finals as a freshman, appears ready to rebound from an injury-filled sophomore season. Mann is coming off a sensational cross-country season, during which she finished fifth in the Division II state finals.

The Eagles also have one of the county’s top sprinters in senior Meghan Atkinson, who teamed with Shanklin and sophomore Sommer Owen to run the county’s top time (3:55.13) in the 1,600 relay last season. Sophomore Meghan Mainwaring gives the Eagles additional depth in the distance events.

Best dual meet of the season?

How about Corona del Mar visiting University in the Pacific Coast League on April 13? This figures to provide a good matchup in the distance events, with University’s strong corps of vaulters and high jumpers keeping it close.