Baldwin the Winner of Two Sprints

Handicapping the girls’ sprint events in next weekend’s state track and field championships became a lot more difficult during the Southern Section Masters Meet at Cerritos College on Friday night.

That’s because Jasmine Baldwin of La Puente Bishop Amat defeated Shalonda Solomon of Long Beach Poly in the 100- and 200-meter races to stamp herself as a legitimate state title contender.

Baldwin, a senior who did not run track at the high school level the previous two years, upset Solomon in the 100 in the Mission Viejo Trabuco Hills Invitational on April 3 and finished a close second to her in the Arcadia Invitational the following week.

But Solomon, a senior, appeared to be the superior sprinter in the Southern Section divisional championships last Saturday when her winning wind-aided times of 11.35 seconds in the 100 and 22.94 in the 200 in the Division I meet were substantially faster than Baldwin’s victorious times of 11.65 and 23.74 in the Division III competition.

That meant little Friday, however, as Baldwin twice came from behind to defeat Solomon.

“I don’t know what to say,” a beaming Baldwin said after running a wind-aided 11.43 to defeat Solomon by a hundredth of a second in the 100. “I’m just happy.”

Steve Foss, the sprint coach at Bishop Amat and Baldwin’s adoptive father, was not surprised by his daughter’s victory.

“[Jasmine] was in first place for about the first 40 meters,” Foss said. “And then Shalonda edged past her, and then Jasmine came back on her, and then it was just the two of them to the finish. When it’s that close, Jasmine is just very hard to beat.”

Solomon had a better start than Baldwin in the 200, but Baldwin began to cut into Solomon’s lead entering the straightaway and pulled alongside her with about 30 meters left. She pulled ahead by inches at the finish to clock a nation-leading time of 23.15 that gave her a victory margin of two-hundredths of a second. The time is ninth on the all-time state list and seventh in section history.

Senior Gayle Hunter of Riverside North, who spanned 20 feet 3 1/2 inches in the long jump and a wind-aided 40-11 3/4 in the triple jump, was the only other girl to win two individual events in the meet, which qualifies the top five finishers in each event to the state championships and any other finishers making an at-large qualifying standard.