Burbank freshman finishes second in pentathlon

Jeff Tully

Burbank High’s Kyle Ivie wasn’t the only local track and field

athlete still in action last weekend.

In fact, he wasn’t even the only Bulldog still competing.

Burbank freshman Carolyn Chrzan was in action in the girls’

portion a high school pentathlon event held at Mount San Antonio

College in Walnut.

Taking part in a grueling seven-event competition Saturday and

Sunday, Chrzan did well, finishing second among 12 freshmen.

Although she worked very little in most of the event in

preparation for the competition, Chrzan compiled 3,317 points, losing

to a freshman champion who had 3,485.

“A lot of those event are ones Carolyn had never competed in

before,” Burbank track and field Coach Darin Wolf said.

“Our plan was to work at least two days on each event. But that

didn’t happen. So for some of the events, she worked for a day, or a

day and a half.

“She was kind of disappointed, because she wanted to win the

thing.”

Chrzan -- who is also an All-Foothill League girls’ soccer

standout -- spotted her opponents 400 to 500 points with a mediocre

showing in the first event, the 100-meter hurdles. She finished the

event in 22.4 seconds (131 points).

However, after the early struggle, Chrzan recovered nicely and

made a fine showing in the other events.

She had a mark of 5 feet in the high jump (644 points), 27-7 3/4

in the shot put (427 points) and 26.74 in the 200 (734 points) to

complete the first day of events Saturday.

“I think her effort in the shot put is one of the most

surprising,” Wolf said. “I was pretty impressed with her effort.”

On Sunday, Chrzan began by leaping 15-11 in the long jump (516

points) and went on to throw 77-4 3/4 in the javelin (356 points) and

run 2:45.70 in the 800 (509 points).

In her first season of track and field competition, Chrzan just

missed qualifying for the CIF Southern Section final.

In the preliminaries May 16 at Mount SAC, she finished 10 in the

long jump with a 16-11 1/4 effort, missing a trip to the final by one

place. She entered the event seeded 27th.