Section Rejects Eagles’ Appeal

The Southern Section will not consider an appeal by the Santa Margarita boys’ track and field team regarding the participation of Edison’s Darryl Poston in the 200 meters at Friday’s section preliminaries, Southern Section spokesman Thom Simmons said Monday.

Poston had scratched from the event at the Sunset League finals May 4 after injuring his groin in the long-jump competition, leaving him without a qualifying mark for the prelims. But Sunset League coaches voted the following Monday to give Poston one of the league’s two automatic qualifying berths in the event.

Poston, a two-time Orange County champion in the 100 and 200 meters, finished seventh at the Division II prelims and qualified for the section finals Saturday at Cerritos College.

Santa Margarita, expected to contest Edison for the Division II team title, filed a protest after the race, stating the vote and subsequent switch took place after a deadline listed in the CIF-SS Playoff Entry bulletin sent to each of the league meet managers.

But Simmons said the overriding factors are the league constitutions, which give leagues some leeway when submitting their automatic entries to the Southern Section.

“As long as everyone in the league agrees to it,” Simmons said.

Automatic qualifiers from each league were reduced from three to two, while the remaining finishers had to meet a predetermined qualifying time or mark.

The league could not make Poston the No. 3 entry, because he did not have a qualifying mark from league finals, so they made him an automatic qualifier and entered one of the previous automatic qualifiers based on his qualifying time.

Poston still needed an open lane and that became available when Marina’s Turill Engleman, who had a qualifying time while finishing third at the Sunset finals in the 200, relinquished his spot.

Santa Margarita Coach Dave Zeitler said Sunday night he would not pursue the issue beyond his protest to the Southern Section.