Sutton Has New Racket

In junior high school, Melissa Sutton’s game was tennis, and it was a pretty good game at that. She played local tournaments for about four years, was ranked 29th in Southern California as a 14-year-old, and, she says, was strung tighter than her racket.

“I was sort of a John McEnroe-type,” she recalled. “I did get mad when I was on the tennis court, and I didn’t like that. I didn’t want to be like that. So I stopped playing.”

When Sutton played what turned out to be her last area tournament in the summer before her sophomore year in high school, there were no regrets, no doubts as to whether she would miss the game. In fact, she doesn’t remember now where that tournament was, or how she did.

“I probably lost and was happy,” she said.

Goodby tennis. Goodby, pressure. But what to do in its place? She wanted to compete in sports at Newbury Park High School, as long as it wasn’t tennis. Anything but tennis.

A member of the varsity track team as a freshman, Sutton decided to go out for cross-country her sophomore year and made the A team there, too. Instead of chasing tennis balls, she would be chasing people.

As it turned out, though, people were soon chasing her.

That year, she won the Southern Section 4-A title and finished 24th in the Kinney national meet.

As a junior, she won the Southern Section 4-A title and finished sixth in the Kinney meet.

As a senior, she won the Southern Section 4-A title, leading Newbury Park to a fourth-place finish in the team standings.

She will run the second half of her now annual double Saturday at San Diego’s Balboa Park, where expectations are for a top-five finish in the only prep national championship, that after finishing second by about a stride to Katy McCandless of Palo Alto Castilleja in the West Regional.

Last Saturday’s race in Fresno was, indeed, an oddity: a loss. It was the only time Sutton has been beaten this season.

True, some did wonder out loud how the No. 1 runner could rightfully skip the state’s No. 1 regular-season invitational, at Mt. San Antonio College, in favor of resting for the league meet. But her domination from Santa Barbara to Orange County has otherwise been undeniable.

She set four course records, making her most impressive showing at the Kenny Staub Invitational in La Crescenta, where she shattered the previous best by 34 seconds.

“I wasn’t really expecting to come up with all these records,” Sutton said. “I thought I would have a good year, but not as good as I did.”

She was probably one of the few.

“I really don’t think Melissa knows how good she is,” Newbury Park Coach Mike Stewart said. “She just goes out and races. She doesn’t realize that she is among the best runners in the country. I think if she pulls herself aside in a couple of years and looks back, it will hit home.”

On a weekend of very good championship game matchups, El Toro vs. Santa Ana, Saturday night at Orange Coast College for the Southern Conference crown, is probably the best. That game pits the best team in the Southern Section this year, El Toro, against the hottest.

In fact, Santa Ana, the defending champion with a 12-1 record this season, also has the area’s hottest player, running back Robert Lee. Only a junior, Lee averaged 206 yards in the seven games before last Friday’s semifinal against Lynwood, which “held” him to 159 yards, 3 touchdowns and a two-point conversion on the ground.

On the other side, El Toro running back Aly Diaz is coming off a 255-yard, 4-touchdown effort in the Chargers’ 34-14 semifinal win over Mission Viejo.

“El Toro’s offensive line is one of the finest you’ll ever see in high school football,” Mission Viejo Coach Bill Crow said. “In all my years of coaching, that team rates right at the top. They can beat you so many different ways.”

Prep Notes Fairfax is No. 8 and Santa Ana Mater Dei No. 14 in USA Today’s preseason basketball rankings. Marion, Ind., is No. 1. . . . Former New York prep star Lloyd Daniels, set to play at Mt. San Antonio College before an expected jump to Nevada Las Vegas, has left the team to concentrate on schoolwork, Coach Gene Victor said. Daniels scored 30 points recently against Santa Monica College in his only appearance for Mt. SAC. Mark Warkentien, an assistant at UNLV, is his guardian. . . . Emmitt Smith of Pensacola, Fla., has been named the national high school football Player of the Year by Gatorade. Leonard Russell of Long Beach Poly was the state and regional winner.