Track & Field: The Road to State Finals starts Saturday
Sophomore sensation September Offutt of Monrovia takes some time from her busy CIF finals preparations to talk with staff writer Keith Lair...
AT A GLANCE
CIF-Southern Section Divisional Finals
WHEN: Saturday
WHERE: Cerritos College, Norwalk
FIELD EVENTS: 11 a.m.
RUNNING EVENTS: 1 p.m.
RELATED LINK: CIF-Southern Section Divisional Finals information (DyeStatCal.com)
Saturday's CIF-Southern Section prelims results
Click here for Division I results
Click here for Division II results
Click here for Division III results
Click here for Division IV results
ARCADIA -- There should be no question who will be the tallest girl in the starting blocks for the 100 meters in Saturday's CIF-Southern Section track and field championships.
It more than likely will be Monrovia High School's September Offutt.
The junior basketball player - yes, she is a basketball player - is 6-foot-1. She's not doing the high jump or long jump, or even the 200 or 400, where taller girls typically fit when it comes to track and field specialties. She's in the 100, in Division III with the likes of more compact Kylie Price of Bishop Amat, Ashley Bush of Sonora and Sierra Brooks of Charter Oak.
"She runs more like a linebacker," Monrovia Coach Randy Hare said. "You don't want to get in her way."
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Offutt qualified sixth for Saturday's finals at Cerritos College with a time of 12.43 seconds in last weekend's preliminaries. She finished second in the meet's fastest heat. Four runners from that race, which was won by Price, advanced.
Offutt will also line up in the final slot when the Wildcats compete in the 400 relay. Her team, which includes Camille Robertson, Kia Smith and Bryanna Gawlik, qualified third in a time of 49.27.
"I knew I had a chance of going to CIF, if I worked hard," Offutt said. "We all worked hard."
The problem with being tall and being a sprinter is that, with the exception of Olympic and world-record holder Usain Bolt, sprinters are generally not tall. They are squat and fast. Offutt is tall and fast.
But the problem is that taller sprinters are slower getting out of the blocks.
"You're farther back in the blocks and it takes longer to get out of the blocks," she explained. "But once I get going, I can make up for it with a longer stride."
Which is why, Hare said, she should be better served running the 200 next season.
"That will be a better event for her eventually," he said. "It will be interesting to see what she can do in it."
Offutt became the first Monrovia girl to win both the 100 and 200 Rio Hondo League titles in several years, taking the 100 in 12.84 and the 200 in 25.36 two weeks ago. She also ran the anchor leg on the league-winning 400 relay team and ran anchor on the 1,600 relay team, which finished third in league.
She tried to qualify in the 200 at the prelims, but finished 21st in 26.44. The 1,600 relay team was also well off the top-nine list, finishing 18th in 4:05.64.
Hare said that she could have challenged for the league title in the long jump, too; she has jumped farther than 16-0. But she turned down the event to try and help the 1,600 relay team qualify for the CIF-SS finals.
"I think she's done really well this year," Hare said. "We saw potential last year and convinced her to stick with it."
Offutt competed on the track for the Wildcats last season, but did not advance to the league finals.
Her best sport is basketball. But this season, on a team that reached the CIF-SS Division III-A semifinals, Offutt was nowhere to be found.
"I wanted to catch up on my schooling," she said.
It was hard watching her friends win the league title and have a successful season, but she plans on resuming her favorite sport next season.
"I wanted to be out there so bad," she said. "To see my friends do so well. It was hard. I went to all the games."
Because she was not participating in athletics, she said, she began this season slowly. Her fastest 100 time has been a 12.21, run in a dual meet against La Ca ada. Hare said she will need to improve by three- to four-tenths of a second to advance to next week's CIF-SS Master's Meet. Only the top nine times from all four of Saturday's division races will advance to the Master's.
"I'm hoping and praying," she said.
keith.lair@sgvn.com
(626) 962-8811, Ext. 4456
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Melendez worked as a correspondent for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune for three years and later landed a job as a freelance writer at the Los Angeles Times before accepting an offer at The Orange County Register covering high schools. Melendez covered Major League Soccer at The Register for three years before being promoted to report on the Lakers, Angels and Dodgers for the Web. Melendez also worked for the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Fresno Bee, Oakland Tribune and The Boston Globe. E-mail opinions, suggestions and tips to miguel.melendez@sgvn.com. |
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South Pas also has Shalini Pace in the girls triple jump. (Pons, Pace, and Astle are all sophomores. The rest of the So Pas finalists are seniors.)
Miguel:
Just read the South Pas review article on the CIF Finals, and therafter looked up the results of some of the WSGV schools. There needs to be bit of a shout out to Muir, South Pas, Arcadia , LC Boys and some others for putting multiple athletes into the finals against some pretty heady competition. The Muir boys have finalists in the 4 X 100, 110M HH and 300MH, SP has finalists in the 110H (Poryanee), 300H (Stephens and Poryanee), 400M (Colliau), 1600M (Pons), 3200M (Pons), 4 X 400M (Kopperud, Astle, Stephens , Colliau), LJ (Poryanee), La Canada in the 800M and HJ, Arcadia in a couple of distance events and Rosemead in the SP. Additionally, La Salle, Prep, Maranatha, Poly and Blair have several finalists in Div. 4. Props need to go out to all these athletes for amazing runs etc into the finals. Congrats.
This girl is a beast in the 100, i've seen her run. I hope that big PR comes for her come saturday...additionaly miguel, who else in this league is going to finals? TC's got 3 polevaulters : Koko Huang, Jessica Dang, and Jonathan Wang who are going to finals this friday (with a pretty decent seeding i might add).
Goodluck to all the league teams heading over to finals this saturday!