Haneef Getting Jump on the Competition

This is a busy time of the year for Long Beach State’s Tayyiba Haneef.

She’s involved in spring practice and off-season matches with the 49er volleyball team as well as competing in the high jump with the track team, when her time permits.

“Luckily, I’m taking only nine hours in school this spring,” she said.

Haneef will graduate in May but will begin work on her masters while completing her volleyball eligibility next season. She was a redshirt in volleyball as a freshman after early-season back problems.

But this is her last season of eligibility in outdoor track, and Haneef hopes she can make a run at the national high jump title.

She won the Big West Conference championship last season with a jump of 6 feet 1 1/4 inches and was seventh in the NCAA meet at 5-11 1/4.

A state champion in the high jump as well as a standout in volleyball and basketball at Laguna Hills High, Haneef was 11th in the national indoor meet this season with a jump of 5-10 3/4.

She cleared 5-10 1/2 early in the outdoor season in a meet at USC to meet the NCAA provisional qualifying height, and track Coach Andy Sythe expects her to clear the automatic qualifying mark of 5-11 1/2 before the Big West Conference meet, May 16-19 at Long Beach.

Haneef hasn’t competed in the high jump for two weeks, instead devoting her time to the weekend volleyball matches.

“My main emphasis still has to be on spring volleyball because that’s where my scholarship is,” she said. “The spring competition is taken seriously because those matches tell you a lot about how you’re going to match up. But I should have the whole month of May to devote to track.”

Haneef, a middle blocker, ranked second on the team in kills last season with an average of 4.27 a game.

“She’s been working with track a minimal amount of time, but she doesn’t need a lot of meets to do well,” Sythe said.

“I think she could vie for the national title this season. She has something going some of the other jumpers don’t, and that’s experience in the nationals. Her approach is better than at the end of last season, though her takeoff mechanics aren’t quite as good sometimes. But when she puts it all together, she looks great.”

BIG YEAR FOR BOONE

First baseman Ashley Boone, who played at Woodbridge High, is having a standout senior season for the Florida softball team.

Boone leads the team with a .338 average, and was recently selected Southeastern Conference player of the week during a stretch when she went eight for 18 (.444) with seven runs batted in. Boone also scored the go-ahead run in a two-out rally that produced a series-clinching victory over Mississippi.

Boone, a four-year starter, was a second-team All-SEC selection as a sophomore and earned first-team honors last season as a junior.

Boone batted .303 with 27 RBIs as a freshman and .355 with 43 RBIs as a sophomore. Last season, she batted .296 and drove in 37 runs.

NOTEWORTHY

Senior Jim Polster (Dana Hills High) ranks second on the Long Beach State men’s volleyball team with an average of 3.53 kills per game and first in total blocks with 71. Polster is fifth in career kills at Long Beach with 1,329.

Katie Ferguson (Santa Margarita High) is having a good season for the Cal Baptist women’s water polo team. A junior transfer from San Diego State, Ferguson has 61 goals and 13 assists.

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