06.01.08
Foothill’s Schwartz has a great view of history
Foothill’s Schwartz has a great view of history
BY ZACH EWING , Californian staff writer
zewing@bakersfield.com | Saturday, May 31 2008 11:39 PM
Last Updated: Saturday, May 31 2008 11:41 PM
NORWALK — It was just like any of the other distance races Foothill junior Chris Schwartz has won this season.
He played along with the front-runners for most of the race, had a big kick in the final lap and then held off any challengers.
The only problem this time: German Fernandez, the distance machine from Riverbank, was nearly half a lap ahead of Schwartz shattering a national high school record.
“He’s insane,” Schwartz said.
Schwartz finished a distant second in the boys 3,200 meters race at the CIF Track and Field State Championships on Saturday despite a personal-record time of 8:58.50.
“I felt like I could have done better,” Schwartz said. “But I ended with the best I did this year. Next year, I’m definitely going to go for it.”
Doing Kern County proud
Schwartz’s performance gave Foothill 28 team points and momentarily placed it first in the boys team race with just two events to go.
The Trojans finished fourth — Compton-Dominguez (36 points), Long Beach-Poly (32) and Los Gatos (32) passed them after the pole vault and 1,600 relay were completed — but it was still part of a memorable Kern County showing.
Between Anna Jelmini of Shafter, Dayshan Ragans of Foohill, and Ridgeview’s Johnny Carter, the county brought home nearly one-sixth of the state’s titles, a great result for a county that makes up roughly two percent of California’s population.
Add to those five titles Schwartz’s second place, two thirds, a fourth and a fifth.
Shafter’s girls finished fourth in the girls race because of Jelmini’s championships in the throwing events. Long Beach-Poly won the girls title with 39 points, followed by San Jose-Mount Pleasant with 30 and Oakland-St. Elizabeth with 26.
Mitchell’s lead evaporates
For a few seconds in the first lap of the boys 800, North’s Anthony Mitchell pulled out ahead of a fast-paced race, showing the state what he could do. But it was only a few seconds.
Mitchell faded around the 400-meter mark and couldn’t make up ground in the second lap. He was able to hold off L.A.-Loyola’s Elias Gedyon for fifth place, finishing in 1:54.01. Charles Jock of San Diego-Mission Bay won the race in 1:51.64.
Coming up inches — actually less than an inch — short of the podium was Centennial’s Alana Alexander, who finished seventh in the long jump with a mark of 18-4.5. That was a quarter of an inch behind sixth-place Jackae Bridges of Santa Ana-Mater Dei. The top six in each event were given medals.
Alexander fouled her first and last attempts in the triple jump, thought to be her stronger event, and finished ninth of the nine finalists with a 37-2.
Fleetest of foot
Of all the spectacular shows put on at the state meet, the two that had half the crowd of 10,712 talking on cell phones afterwards were Christine Babcock of Irvine-Woodbridge and Fernandez in the 1,600.
Babcock won her race in the first lap, then began to pull away. The crowd rose to a crescendo as she began her last lap, a national high school record easily a possibility. At that point, she picked up the pace even more, finishing in an unbelievable 4:33.82 — a full 4.5 seconds better than the previous national record.
Not to be outdone, Riverbank phenom Fernandez quickly left his competition in the dust. The crowd, still abuzz from Babcock’s run, tasted another record. Fernandez missed it by about three-quarters of a second, his 4:00.29 just slower than a 3:59.51 ran by Alan Webb (South Lakes, Va.) in 2001.
Fernandez’s seemingly endless energy left him enough to power past the field in the 3,200, maybe an even more astounding performance. His 8:34.23 crushed the previous national high school record of 8:41.10. And — get this — he still had enough energy to take a lap around Falcon Stadium before his medal ceremony to give some newfound fans high fives.
BY A HAIR: Just before Babcock and Fernandez ran at their records in the 1,600, Long-Beach Poly held off a charging Compton-Dominguez team by one-hundreth of a second, 41.26 to 41.27 in the boys 400 relay.
There was another spectacular finish at the end, with San Luis Obispo-Mission Prep’s Jordan Hasay holding off Davis’ Laurynne Chetelat by less than a half-second in the 3,200, 9:52.13 to 9:52.51. Both times bested the old meet record.
The other meet record that fell came in the boys pole vault, where Los Gatos’ Nico Weiler cleared 17-3.
