Baxter loses one, wins one to highlight CIF track finals

Tracked down

By Jim Carlisle

Posted May 19, 2012 at 9:31 p.m.

WALNUT — OK, here's a sentence you've never read before:

Sarah Baxter lost a race.

The Simi Valley High sophomore showed Saturday at the CIF-Southern Section Track and Field Championships that even she is human, finishing second in the Division 2 girls 1,600-meter race, her first high school loss in either track or cross country.

However, Baxter's win in the 3,200 at Mount San Antonio College helped Simi Valley's girls win the Division 2 title with 56 points, only five points better than Cajon. In that same division, Westlake was fifth, Thousand Oaks eighth, Ventura ninth, Camarillo 12th and Newbury Park 14th.

Rio Mesa's boys won the Division 3 boys championship, scoring 63 points to Sherman Oaks-Notre Dame's 59. The Spartans were led by their 4x100 relay team, which broke the CIF-SS Division 3 record, but the title was clinched by the 4x400 relay team, which won the last event of the meet.

Oaks Christian's boys placed second, scoring 78 points in Division 4, but finished 29 points behind Serra, which won for the sixth straight year.

The top nine overall performances in most events, regardless of division, advanced to Friday night's Masters Meet at Cerritos College. In the 800, 1,600, 3,200 and all field events, the top 12 advance.

Baxter was beaten by Xochitl Navarrete of Ontario-Colony, who had the fastest time of the day at 4 minutes, 47.19 seconds. Baxter's time was still a personal record, 4:49.33.

But Baxter, who is accustomed to winning comfortably — especially in the 3,200, which she won Saturday evening with a time of 10:27.90 — was neck and neck with Navarrete until the challenger began putting some distance on Baxter in the final lap.

Baxter still qualified for the Masters Meet, so she said losing the Southern Section crown to Navarrete wasn't the biggest thing in the world.

"But don't get me wrong," she said. "She really pushed me and she ran really fast and I'm dead right now. So even though I didn't go out and get first, I went at my fastest."

Baxter wasn't even second fastest overall in the 1,600. Cami Chapus and Amy Weissenbach of Division 3 Harvard-Westlake and Erika Reddish of Division 1 Vista Murrieta all had faster times.

Asked if she was shocked not to win, Baxter said, "I'm surprised. … Nothing (went wrong). I PR'd, I went fast, I'm tired. It was a good race."

The only races Baxter haven't won were an open 5,000-meter race last summer at Portland, Ore., in which she competed against mostly older runners and took "fifth or sixth," said coach Roger Evans, and a cross country race in the snow at Reno, Nev., as an eighth-grader where she finished second.

Evans said Baxter was running the 1,600 primarily because Simi Valley had a chance at challenging for the Division 2 team title.

"It can have a positive effect and it can have a negative effect," Evans said of the loss. "It can go either way. … I don't think it's going to have a negative effect on her. I think she's going to just bounce back."

Baxter won the 3,200 by nearly six seconds over Navarrete (10:33.85).

Rio Mesa's 4x100 relay team not only won in 41.05 seconds and beat Serra's 1998 Division 3 record by 0.03 seconds, it did so with a new lineup, after a member left the team this week. The Spartans inserted Rod White into the No. 1 spot, followed by Blake Selig, Darion Zimmerman and Cameron Roach, and turned in the best time in the state this season, breaking the previous best by 0.40 seconds.

"Luckily, we were a deep team the whole year long," Rio Mesa coach Bryan FitzGerald said. "We've got kids; we knew we were deep enough to do that. We had run 'B' teams in our relays all year long and Rod had run the first leg in our heats, so he was a natural fit."

Selig also won the long jump in 22 feet, 3¾ inches.

Vinnie Saucer of Oaks Christian defended his Division 4 titles in the 100 (10.54) and 200 (21.42).

Other area boys winners were: Zack Bornstein of Oaks Christian in the discus (159-1) and Oaks Christian's 4x100 relay (41.35).

"We felt good today because everybody got healthy in the last week," Saucer said of the relay. "Once we practice with each other a few more times, we'll be at our best."

In girls competition, Oak Park's Sydney Lewis, the state's top runner in the 100 this year, won both the Division 3 100 (11.70) and the 200 (24.32).

Westlake's 4x100 relay team pulled off a victory in the Division 2 girls 4x100 in 11.70 with three sophomores and a freshman: Sara Schwartz, Abigail Smith, Nicole Greenberg and Brooke Edell.

"We haven't been training a really long time," Schwartz said, "so we wanted to stay focused as much as we could and not psyche ourselves out of the race."

Other area girls winners were: Smith in the 100 (11.63), Caitlin Turner of Thousand Oaks in the Division 2 800 (2:10.81), Angelyn Caldwell of Thousand Oaks in the Division 2 high jump (5-5) and Geraldynn Leaupepe of Camarillo in the Division 2 discus (129-10).

Other area boys headed to the Masters Meet include pole vaulters Connor Stark of Oak Park and Luigi Colella of Westlake, Grant Weiss of Oxnard in the 110 hurdles, Kyle Medina of Ventura in the 800, and Rio Mesa's Zimmerman in the 400.

Other area girls who will be in the Masters Meet include Holly Tokar and Kim Sanchez of Oaks Christian in the pole vault; Oaks Christian's 4x400 relay; Jazzelena Black of Pacifica and Asha Culhane of Oaks Christian in the triple jump; Brittany Tayloe of Oaks Christian, Candace Dominguez-Fields of Ventura, Erinn Beattie of Buena, and Raegan Nizdil of Rio Mesa in the high jump; Schuyler Moore of Oaks Christian in the 200, Danni Alikija of Oaks Christian in the 200 and 400; Kendall Mader of Newbury Park and Katelyn Homb of Ventura in the discus; Marissa Rossi of Calabasas and Madisen Richards of Simi Valley in the long jump; and Amanda Hamilton of Simi Valley in the 300 hurdles.