THE HIGH SCHOOLS / JOHN ORTEGA : In Long Run, Qualifying Unfair

The success of Marmonte League distance runners is liable to haunt the league when it holds its track and field finals May 3 at Camarillo High.

With only the top three finishers in each varsity boys’ and girls’ event qualifying for the Southern Section 3-A Division preliminaries, some of the section’s best female distance runners will not be present for the 3-A championships.

The girls’ 3,200 meters is a case in point.

Senior Deena Drossin of Agoura (a nation-leading 10 minutes 40.2 seconds), sophomore Stacy Auer of Thousand Oaks (10:49.57), junior Veronica Barajas of Channel Islands (10:51.47) and senior Jeannie Rothman of Westlake (10:52.1) entered Saturday night’s Arcadia Invitational with impressive credentials. Yet one of them will not qualify for the 3-A preliminaries because of the current Southern Section setup.

Drossin is the defending state champion in the 3,200. Barajas finished fifth in the 1990 Kinney national cross-country championships and Rothman was second, and Auer is one of the top sophomores in the country.

If the 3-A preliminaries were based on qualifying marks--not an individual’s place in an event in the league meet--it would make the qualifying process more equitable.

For example, if the qualifying mark in the girls’ 3-A 3,200 was 12:00, anyone who ran equal to or faster than that time would automatically qualify for the 3-A preliminaries.

Qualification based on marks has been used at the NCAA and The Athletics Congress championships for decades, and the time has come for its implementation at the Southern Section level.

Pennant fever: For the first time in three seasons, there appears to be a legitimate race for the Golden League baseball title.

After winning the past two league titles by margins of six and three games, respectively, Saugus (8-5) finds itself in a three-way tie for first at 4-2 with Palmdale (7-4) and Antelope Valley (6-6) after Friday’s games.

Antelope Valley, which won the league title in 1988, the last time Saugus didn’t, worked its way into the title picture with 11-8 and 11-7 wins over Quartz Hill on Tuesday and Wednesday and a 4-1 victory over Ridgecrest Burroughs on Friday.

The Antelopes were hitting an anemic .182 and averaging only 2.7 runs a game in league play before this week, but they appeared to snap out of their funk by scoring 26 runs on 22 hits.

“No one is looking at us as a contender for the league title,” first-year Coach Ed t’Sas said before Tuesday’s game. “But if we can go 3-0 this week, we’ll be right back in the race.”

The Antelopes did and they are.

Add Golden League: Canyon (7-5-1, 3-3) is only a game out of first place, but it’s hard to tell if the Cowboys are contenders or pretenders.

Canyon has given up only four runs in league victories over Ridgecrest Burroughs (twice) and Quartz Hill. However, the Cowboys are 0-3 against the big three. Canyon has given up a combined 20 runs in losses to Saugus, Antelope Valley and Palmdale.

Bouncing back: Palmdale sophomore Joe Garcia (4-2) must have felt like he was at an amusement park this week, considering his roller-coaster performances on the mound.

Garcia (4-2) took the loss in Tuesday’s 11-10 defeat to Saugus, giving up six runs and seven hits in four innings of relief.

But on Friday, he started and picked up the win in a 1-0 victory over Canyon, allowing only a run on three hits in six innings.

Quick stats: How fast was the 11.40-second 100-meter clocking by Rio Mesa’s Marion Jones at the Oakland Relays in Berkeley last week?

Fast enough to set a national age-15 and sophomore record, and fast enough to meet the A qualifying standard for this year’s World Championships in Tokyo.

Meeting the A standard is the easy part, however, because Jones also has to finish among the top three at the TAC championships in New York on June 12-15, to qualify for the U. S. team.

To accomplish that, she’ll probably have to run 11.10 or faster.

Trivia time: If Jones did run that fast, whose national high school record would she break?

Hint: She was the silver medalist in the 400 meters at the 1984 Olympic Games and is the only person to win gold medals in both the 400- and 1,600-meter relays at the same Olympics.

Recruiting watch: Dave Hartman of Canyon is scheduled to take a recruiting trip to Villanova today after competing in the 3,200 meters at the Arcadia Invitational on Saturday night.

Hartman, the third-place finisher in the Kinney national cross-country championships last year, already has visited Arizona and Wisconsin.

Trivia answer: Chandra Cheeseborough of Jacksonville (Fla.) Ribault High ran 11.13 in the 100 to finish second in the 1976 Olympic trials.