Knee Injuries Don’t Slow Poway’s Dill, University City’s Price at Mt. SAC

WALNUT —  Both Kim Dill of Poway High and Jerome Price of University City High suffered knee injuries while competing at the 32nd Mt. San Antonio College Relays on Saturday.

But Price felt the pain more than Dill.

Dill won both the 300-meter low hurdles (44.77) and the 100 low hurdles (14.58). Dill’s 300-meter time was the section’s fastest this year by one-tenth of a second.

Price, too, placed first in his event, the long jump, with a wind-aided leap of 25-feet-4 3/4.

That distance is a quarter-inch shy of his seasonal national best, 25-5. The all-time section best is 25-5 1/4 by San Diego High’s Doyle Steele in 1966.

“If I keep thinking about the record, I’m not going to get it,” Price said. “I’m putting too much pressure on myself.”

It was that kind of pain, more psychological than physical, that Price was feeling despite twisting his right knee on his fourth jump and causing swelling under the knee cap.

Price reached only 22-6 on that fourth jump and 21-3 1/2 on his fifth and final jump.

All of those marks were wind-aided. But Price and others questioned the accuracy of the wind gauge.

The gauge measured the wind a 3.22-meters per second on Price’s winning jump. It gave the same reading for the third-place jump of 23-5 1/2 by Lincoln sophomore Scott Hammond.

Both Price and Hammond said they tested the wind before jumping by plucking some grass and throwing it into the air.

“It went straight to the ground when I did it,” Hammond said.

“Me, too,” Price said. “If it was as strong as they say, I probably could have gone farther.”

Dan Shrum, meet director, vouched for the accuracy of the gauge and said Price and Hammond may have been confused by the constantly changing conditions.

“The wind just doesn’t blow (continually),” Shrum said. “Sometimes it’s there, and sometimes it’s not. We’re using a certified wind gauge with a TAC (The Athletics Congress) official reading it. The wind can be blowing one place in the stadium but not be blowing 10 feet away.”

Like Price, Dill had to go to the first-aid tent because of her right knee. She bruised it by hitting the second-to-last hurdle in the 100 lows.

But winning that event and the 300 hurdles covered the pain.

“Today,” Dill said, “my hopes are back up.”

Dill was encouraged for several reasons:

--She eclipsed San Pasqual’s Erin Blunt, whose 44.87 in the 300-meter low hurdles had led the county.

--She was able to out-run Shawna Bernard of Nogales, who last week at the Sundevil Invitational beat Dill with a 45.64. Dill was third in 46.83.

--She might have run a personal best in the 100 (14.29) had she not banged her knee into that second-to-last hurdle.

“I really think (hitting the hurdle) slowed me down a lot,” Dill said. “I felt like my form just died on the last hurdle and on the final sprint I didn’t go as hard as I can. Maybe I wouldn’t have broken 14, but it would have been a PR.”

Track Notes

Clay Biddle of Mt.Carmel, in his third week of competition after coming back from a stress fracture in his lower right tibia, turned in the county’s fastest 1,500-meter time, 3:58.19. It was the first time Biddle, a senior, has gone under four minutes. He said he has yet to gain full strength. . . . The Mt. Carmel girls’ 3,200-meter relay team (Allison Dring, Susan Scott, Angie Cooper and Charity Stowell) took first place in that event with a time of 9:25.99. Their goal going into the meet was to run a 9:30. It was a school record by nearly 20 seconds, Coach Dennis McClanahan said.