Amoo, Siraki Hatch Winning Strategies

Different strategies produced similar results for seniors Seth Amoo of Highland High and Anita Siraki of Hoover on Saturday in the Southern Section Division I track and field preliminaries at Trabuco Hills High in Mission Viejo.

Amoo posted the top times in the boys’ 100 meters (10.67) and 200 (21.33) with all-out efforts in his qualifying heats and Siraki won her heats in the girls’ 800 in 2:14.17, 1,600 in 5:01.57 and 3,200 in 10:25.17 while running under control.

“I’m working for time,” Amoo said after the 200. “Basically, I’m trying to run times that won state last year.”

Amoo’s 200 time was one-tenth of a second off his state-leading mark of 21.23 set in the Golden League finals on May 4, but his 100 mark cut .16 seconds off his previous best set in the Trabuco Hills Invitational on March 31.

“[My 100 time] lets me know that I can run my 200 faster than I have,” Amoo said. “My 100 start is not as strong as my 200 start.”

Amoo, who has signed with Arizona State, advanced to Saturday’s divisional championships at Cerritos College in four events. He was the fifth qualifier in the long jump at 22-4 1/2 and the anchor runner on Highland’s 400 relay team that qualified fifth at 42.94.

Siraki, defending state champion in the 3,200, was the leading qualifier in the 1,600 and 3,200 and the second qualifier in the 800 behind Maribeth Buche of Anaheim Esperanza, who ran 2:12.63.

“I felt really good,” the Stanford-bound Siraki said after running the second 1,600 of the 3,200 in 5:00.4. “Because I’ve had a pretty hard workout week, my legs have just not been recovering.”

Senior Jamil Smith of Palmdale, defending state champion in the boys’ triple jump, led qualifying in that event at 49-1, qualified fifth in the 110 high hurdles in 15.35 and seventh in the long jump at 22-2 1/4.

Senior Wes Felix of Valencia was the third qualifier in the 100 with a career-best 10.74, the fourth qualifier in the 200 in 21.84 and ran a 48.7-second anchor leg on Valencia’s 1,600 relay team that posted the sixth-fastest time, 3:22.27.

Notable nonqualifiers were junior Justin Tryon of Littlerock in the boys’ 400, senior Chadd Smith of Camarillo in the boys’ high jump and Hueneme in the boys’ 400 relay.

Tryon, whose 400 best of 48.02 ranked third on this season’s state list at the start of the week, ran 49.72 on Saturday.

Smith, third in the high jump in the state meet last year, was a nonqualifying 11th at 6-4 after missing the first half of the season because of an injured left knee.

Hueneme ran 43.84 in the 400 relay after clocking 42.36 to win the Ventura County title on April 27.