Easygoing Clements Charges Hard to Win

When you are 6-foot-2 and 145 pounds with a long, loping stride that eats up ground with effortless efficiency, it’s hard to convince people you’re running hard.

But senior Daniel Clements of Taft High insists running isn’t as easy for him as it appears.

Clements, runner-up in the 1,600 and 3,200 meters in the City Section track championships in May, placed first in a West Valley League cross-country meet against Birmingham at Pierce College on Thursday to lead the Toreadors to a 22-34 victory.

His 15:43 clocking over the three-mile course topped his previous best at Pierce by 18 seconds and gave him a 24-second margin over senior Lino Ortiz of Birmingham.

For most of the race, Clements looked like he was out for a Sunday morning jog.

While Ortiz pushed the pace for the first two-plus miles, Clements bided his time behind him, shortening his stride at times to stay back of his rival.

When Clements finally took the lead, his move was quick and decisive.

He opened up a 10-yard lead on Ortiz within a stretch of 50 yards and extended it to the finish.

“I thought about making that move a week ago,” said Clements, who has run 4:17.59 in the 1,600 and 9:26.80 in the 3,200. “I knew exactly where I wanted to go.”

There was a lot of shuffling of places in the race behind Clements and Ortiz.

While Taft had a 23-31 lead based on its places after the first 1,000 yards of the race, Birmingham tied the score, 28-28, at about 1 3/4 miles.

It was all Taft after that.

While Clements was going from second to first, teammate Candelario Rodriguez was maintaining his third-place position, with Raul Robles, Marcos Guerrero and Josh Zeichik moving from sixth, eighth and ninth to fifth, sixth and seventh for Taft (3-0, 3-0 in league meets).

Rodriguez, a junior, clocked 16:47 with Robles, Guerrero and Zeichik, all seniors, at 17:16, 17:17 and 17:17.

“Our inexperience really showed in the last mile,” Birmingham Coach Scott King said. “We just didn’t run well.”

Although Taft’s victory gave the Toreadors sole possession of first place with a double-dual meet left in the regular season, Toreador Coach Mel Hein had urged Clements and his teammates to run as easily as possible to conserve energy for the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational in Walnut on Saturday.

“I’m told that,” Clements said. “But the minute I hit the starting line, I’m totally focused in on the race I’m running and giving it 100% no matter what meet it is. That’s the way I’ve always run.”

When told it often looks likes he’s cruising, Clements smiled and said his goal is to make it look easy.

“My mom blessed me with these long legs,” he said. “But ever since I started running as a freshman, I’ve been working on improving my running mechanics. I’m trying to get to the point where my legs are doing all the work and the rest of my body is just going along for the ride.”

Birmingham won the girls’ meet, 15-40, as senior Melissa Astete led a Patriot sweep of the top six places.

Astete, three-time City champion in the girls’ pole vault and the region record holder at 12-5 1/2, clocked 20:23 for Birmingham (3-0, 3-0).

Freshman Marina Santana was second in 21:09, followed by junior Martha Gonzalez in 21:16, senior Dalia Jacome in 22:11 and sophomore Jennifer Mobarez in 22:12.