Amoo Makes It Look Easy in Finals

Seth Amoo of Highland High blew conventional track and field wisdom away in the boys’ 200-meter dash on Saturday in the Southern Section divisional championships at Cerritos College in Norwalk.

Amoo, a senior, has been the fastest 200 sprinter in the state for most of the season, but conventional wisdom dictated that his improvement would be measured in hundredths of a second during the last few weeks of the season.

Amoo would have been happy to break 21 seconds for the first time in the state final in Sacramento on June 2, but he zoomed past that barrier Saturday with a 20.82 clocking to win the Division I race.

The time, aided by a 1.6-meter-per-second wind, obliterated Amoo’s previous best of 21.23 while moving him to fourth on this year’s national performer list and to second on the all-time region list.

Quincy Watts of Taft set the region record of 20.50 in 1987.

“That’s as good as I’ve felt so far,” Amoo said. “I felt like I needed to run a strong turn because that’s my strongest point in the 200. I’ve been working on trying to complete my last 100 and I completed it very well today.”

The 200 completed a victorious double for the Arizona State-bound Amoo. He won the 100 in a career-best 10.63 earlier in the day. He also ran the anchor leg on a 400 relay team that finished third in a season-best 42.36 and placed eighth in the long jump with a wind-aided 21-11.

Jamil Smith of Palmdale won the Division I long jump at 23-0 1/2 and then bounded a region record of 50-10 3/4 to win the triple jump.

Smith, defending state champion in the triple jump, bettered his previous best of 49-10 3/4 to break the region record of 50-6 by Russell White of Crespi in 1989.

Senior Chris Foster of Ventura, who missed last season after undergoing surgery to reconstruct a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, won the Division II 110 high hurdles in a Ventura County record 14.03 and placed second in the 300 lows in a career-best 38.46.

Senior Jon Williams of Notre Dame led the Knights to a second-place finish in the Division III meet by winning his second consecutive titles in the high hurdles and intermediates. His times of 14.19 and 37.59 were career bests.

Williams ran the anchor leg on a 1,600 relay team that placed first in a season-best 3:18.63.

“I knew I had to come out and get after it,” Williams said. “And two [personal records] came out of that.”

Senior Mark Nevers of Oak Park won the 1,600 and 3,200 in the Division IV meet, posting school records of 4:18.95 and and 9:16.06.

Senior Makisi Haleck of Thousand Oaks won the Division I pole vault at 15-1 after winning the Division II title last year.