Wilson Breaks National Mark

Long Beach Wilson bettered the national high school record in the girls’ 1,600-meter sprint medley relay Friday when it ran 3 minutes 53.28 seconds in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in Walnut, but it was more than four hours before the Bruins’ time became official.

That’s because Wilson was initially disqualified after officials ruled that Tiffany Wright violated National Federation of States High Schools Associations rules when she wore a necklace with a cross on it as she ran the second leg.

According to the National Federation rule book, jewelry cannot be worn during competition except for religious or medical alert medals. And a religious medal must “be taped or worn under the uniform.”

Terry Kennedy, Wilson’s girls’ coach, said that Wright had pinned the cross to her uniform top behind her neck, but that her necklace had been visible as she ran her 200-meter leg.

A “jewelry rules violation” was the reason given for the disqualification, but things didn’t end there. Wilson protested the disqualification on the grounds that Wright was wearing the cross because it was Good Friday.

The Mt. SAC Relays games committee then asked the officials to review their ruling and the officials stood by their initial call.

The games committee later overturned the officials’ ruling, however, saying that the cross had been attached underneath Wright’s uniform top.

“The officials technically made the right call because of the jewelry rule,” Kennedy said. “But by being a religious holiday, she was allowed to wear it.”

Vincetta Mendola started the record-setting relay with a 24.8-second split on her 200-meter leg, and Wright followed with a 25.8 split.

MacKenzie Hill ran a 53.8 split on her 400 leg before Ashley Freeman ran 2:08.9 on her 800 anchor leg to help Wilson trim 1.11 seconds off the previous record of 3:54.39 set by Philadelphia Penn in 1997.

“It was pretty frustrating,” Freeman said of the hours it took to rule whether Wilson had been disqualified or not. “It was tiring, going back and forth, getting happy.”

Seniors Allyson Felix of North Hills L.A. Baptist and Kira Costa of Fresno San Joaquin Memorial had the top performances in the meet in individual events.

Felix, who will run in the women’s invitational 200 today, won the girls’ 100 in a wind-aided 11.24. The time was the fastest in the nation this year under any conditions.

Costa, who set a national indoor record of 13-4 1/2 in the girls’ pole vault in the L.A. Invitational at the Sports Arena in February, cleared 13-1 3/4 for the best outdoor mark in the nation this year.

Senior Billie Jo Grant of Arroyo Grande, the top-ranked girls’ discus thrower in the nation last year, won her third consecutive discus title with a meet-record 175 feet 7 inches and placed first in the shotput at 46-10 3/4.

Junior Mohamed Trafeh of Duarte, who finished seventh in the national cross-country championships in December, won the 1,500 in a career-best 3:53.78 and the 3,000 in 8:32.55.

Long Beach Poly won its second consecutive boys’ and girls’ team titles.