Felix Sets Record; Poly Takes Title

Victory laps have been few and far between at the state track and field championships over the years, but Allyson Felix of North Hills Los Angeles Baptist was urged to take one by meet officials at Cerritos College on Saturday after setting a national federation record of 22.52 seconds in the girls’ 200 meters before 11,627 spectators.

Felix had run the fastest women’s time in the world this year when she set a world junior (age 19 and under) record of 22.11 in the Banamex Grand Prix meet in Mexico City on May 3 and had set a then-national high school record of 22.51 in winning the invitational women’s race of the Mt. San Antonio College Relays two weeks earlier. But her performance Saturday qualified as a national federation record because it was the fastest time ever run in a high school meet.

Marion Jones had set the previous federation record of 22.67 as a junior at Thousand Oaks in 1992.

“It definitely meant a whole lot,” Felix said of the victory lap. The record run gave Felix her second consecutive state title in the 200 and followed her third consecutive victory in the 100.

Felix came out of the blocks even with Shalonda Solomon of Long Beach Poly on Saturday before powering away from her rival in the final 50 meters to record a school-record 11.29 clocking that moved her into a tie for seventh on the all-time national performer list and to fourth on the all-time state list.

Poly, led by Solomon and fellow junior Jasmine Lee, won a record seventh girls’ team title with a 62-46 victory over runner-up and defending champion Riverside North.

The Jackrabbits won three events and posted seven top-three finishes in the meet in which the top six finishers in each event were awarded points on a 10-8-6-4-2-1 basis.

Solomon was second in the 100 in 11.48, second in the 200 in 23.37 and ran anchor legs on teams that won the 400 relay in 45.04 and the 1,600 relay in 3:35.78, the third-fastest time ever recorded by a U.S. high school team.

Lee won the 400 in 53.17, finished fifth in the 200 in 23.97 and ran on both relay teams.

Ashlee Brown of Riverside North won the 100 high hurdles in a career-best 13.58 to move to sixth on the all-time state list, but finished seventh in the 300 lows in 45.26 after having won that event the previous two years.