Arcadia Meet Will Test Riverside North’s Hunter

Gayle Hunter of Riverside North, who has earned girls’ athlete of the meet honors at various invitationals the past two weekends, will face her toughest tests of the outdoor season Saturday when she competes against national-class fields in the 37th Arcadia Invitational at Arcadia High.

Hunter, a senior, won the long jump and triple jump in the San Diego Mount Carmel Invitational on March 27 to earn girls’ field event performer of the meet honors. And she was selected as the girls’ track and field athlete of the meet in the Mobile (Ala.) Meet of Champions last Saturday after winning the long jump, triple jump and 100-meter high hurdles and running a leg on the victorious 400 relay team.

She will compete in those same four events in the Arcadia Invitational, which starts at 5:15 p.m. today and concludes Saturday with the open session that starts at 10:45 a.m. and the invitational session that begins at 4 p.m. with the boys’ discus. Invitational running events start at 5:40.

Distance runner Brandon Bethke of Lake Forest El Toro, who will participate in the two-mile run, discus thrower Ed Cornell of Ridgecrest Burroughs, sprinters Shalonda Solomon of Long Beach Poly and Jasmine Baldwin of La Puente Bishop Amat, and shotputter Megan Howard of Arroyo Grande are some of the other yearly national or state leaders from the Southland who will compete in a meet that is regarded as the best regular-season invitational in the nation.

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Long Beach Wilson girls’ 400 relay team, which moved to sixth on the all-time national list with its performance in the Texas Relays on Saturday, joins Lionel Larry of Compton Dominguez and David Gettis of Los Angeles Dorsey to top the list of local entries in the inaugural California Relays at the Home Depot Center in Carson.

The two-day meet will start at noon today with competition in the discus. Running events, which will include the majority of the finals, will start at 3 p.m. Events start at 9 a.m. Saturday.

For Wilson, junior Tiana Hood, freshman Ebony Collins, sophomore DeAnna Carson and senior Carol Rodriguez won the girls’ 400 relay in 44.93 seconds in the Texas Relays and will try to break the national record of 44.63 set by Alief (Texas) Elsik last year.

Collins, who has the fastest time in the nation this year in the 300 low hurdles at 41.43, will also run in that event.

Rodriguez, a transfer from Anaheim Western, is entered in the 100 and 200.

Larry, the defending state champion in the boys’ 200, will run in that event and the 100. He will also run on Dominguez’s 400 and 1,600 relay teams.

Gettis, the defending state champion in the boys’ 400, will run in that event and the 1,600 relay.