Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week, Liz Morse: Ahead of schedule

Barry Faulkner

Corona del Mar High senior Liz Morse has learned that pleasing the

stop watch may have something to do with bamboozling her body clock.

Faced with the unfamiliar logistics of sprinting 5 1/2 laps around a

wooden oval crammed inside the seating area of the Sports Arena in Los

Angeles, Morse couldn’t rely on the inner time piece she has programmed

-- with years of training -- to respond to landmarks on an outdoor,

400-meter track.

The result, in the open 800-meter race of the 40th Los Angeles

Invitational indoor track and field meet, was a sizzling time of 2:10.26

Saturday, the best indoor clocking in the nation by a prep runner this

year.

“Sometimes, you run your best races when you’re running is totally

subconscious,” said Morse, a three-time Sea View League 800-meter

champion who also has one CIF Southern Section title (1997), one CIF

Masters Meet crown (1999), and was third at the state championships last

spring in the 800.

“Running 5 1/2 laps is more than I’m used to, so I actually couldn’t

remember how I felt at specific times in the race. Something just took

over and I went with it. I went out fast and tried to stay up with the

leaders. I kept waiting for them to announce my 400 split, but I never

heard it. I guess I went out in 63 seconds and, if I’d have known I had

that long to go, I might have shied off the pace.”

Morse didn’t gear down, but three more mature collegiate runners,

including the NCAA 1,500 runner-up last season, pulled away. Still, she

finished ahead of three UCLA athletes and took great pride in her

national best.

CdM Coach Bill Sumner may have been even more excited about the superb

preseason effort, especially on an older, wood track, considered to be

substandard for an indoor facility.

“Having the No. 1 time in the nation is like winning an Academy Award,”

Sumner said. “It’s like a perpetual award, but it’s hers now. She told me

she and her parents were going to wait to celebrate and I said ‘Don’t you

dare.’ That was a helluva mark for that surface and this time of year.”

Sumner has come to expect excellence from Morse, who entered high school

as a soccer player with no competitive running background and has evolved

into one of the nation’s elite.

“I don’t know if she’ll ever win an Olympic gold medal and I don’t care,”

Sumner said. “But I’ll be the last one to tell her she can’t. She’s going

to Princeton, she scored 1540 on the SAT, she has a 4.35 GPA and

everybody loves her. She’s a sweetheart kid with intelligence and talent.

I don’t mean this the wrong way, but that’s weird. It’s a storybook

tale.”

Sumner said Morse will challenge her top peers at the national scholastic

indoor championships, March 11-12 in New York. But her best running

likely won’t occur until late May and June, when the high school season

winds down.

“She’s a little ahead of the game right now,” Sumner said. “The good news

is, we haven’t done any crazy speed work yet.”

Morse said her off-season, between cross country and track, was much

smoother this year. Helping lead the Sea Kings to the Pacific Coast

League, Southern Section and state Division IV titles last fall, Morse

emerged injury free from the cross country season for the first time in

three years.

“I only took two weeks off and I appreciate every day I’m injury-free. I

even went skiing, which I wasn’t allowed to do last year. My family goes

to Sun Valley (Idaho) every year for Christmas and I decided to have some

fun (on the slopes). I was careful, but my attitude was, ‘If I get hurt,

I get hurt.’ ”

Morse, whose personal best outdoors is 2:10.09 at last year’s Golden West

Invitational, said she would love to succeed at nationals. But her

ultimate goal is a CIF state championship.

“Getting third last year (in the 800 at the state meet) was exciting, but

I want to try to win it this year,” she said.