UCLA’s Henderson Sets Standard in 400 Meters

For those who jumped off the Monique Henderson bandwagon after her decorated high school career, the UCLA junior sprinter has a message for you.

She’s back.

At the annual dual meet against USC, Henderson ran the fastest 400-meter outdoor time in the world this season and added a win in the 200 to lead the Bruin women’s team to a 93-70 victory, its 12th in a row over the Trojans.

Henderson ran her preferred 400 in 51.20 seconds, a reminder of her days at San Diego Morse High, where she was a four-time state and national champion and a former national high school record-holder in the event.

“Today was beyond my expectations,” said Henderson, who was seventh in the NCAA 400 last season. “I got to college and I was getting beat and I got too comfortable getting beat. I had to get my drive back.” Henderson won the 200 in 22.71 to defeat USC’s Miya Edmonson and flew past Dominique Dorsey on the anchor leg of the winning 400-meter relay.

“I just want everybody to know that I’m serious this year and they should be a little frightened,” Henderson said.

Defending NCAA 400-meter hurdles champion Sheena Johnson ran second on the sprint relay and kept her big day going by taking both hurdles races. UCLA had 13 individual event winners, compared to four for the Trojans.

The only drawback for the Bruin women was in the pole vault. Chelsea Johnson, who cleared 15 feet on March 27 to set an NCAA record, missed on all three tries at an initial height of 12 feet 10 inches.

It was a surprising development in what has already been a stellar outdoor season. Johnson has emerged as a U.S. Olympic team contender by clearing 14-6 or better in five consecutive meets, but she said her problems Saturday were with pole selection on her new runway approach.

“With every setback it makes you refocus, and hopefully this is my setback,” Johnson said. “If this is going to happen, I’d rather get it out of the way. Better to do this now than later.”

In the men’s events, USC had double winners in Allen Simms (long jump, triple jump) and Wes Felix (100, 200), but UCLA had too much depth in a 111-52 team win after the last two men’s meets had been decided by one point.

Senior Dan Ames was the meet’s only three-time individual winner as he powered the Bruins with a sweep of the throwing events. He won the shotput and discus events Saturday and won Friday’s hammer competition.

Felix won both sprint races in the meet for the second consecutive year and helped the Trojans win the 400 relay in a time of 39.35.

“It was a fun day,” he said.