Track and field: Complete success

Joseph Boo

NORWALK - The girl who had almost everything got the one thing she

didn’t have Saturday -- a state title.

On a sunny afternoon at the CIF state track and field championships at

Cerritos College, Corona del Mar High senior Liz Morse illuminated the

stadium with a winning time of 2:08.16 in the girls 800-meter run to

capture her first state crown.

“This is what she’s been working four years for,” CdM coach Bill Sumner

said. “She has the best national indoor time, the national outdoor time,

she won CIF, but she never won state.”

Until Saturday that is.

With the win, the Princeton-bound senior improved on last year’s

third-place finish, exorcised any memories of getting tripped in the

Southern Section finals as a sophomore, and backed up her splashy state

debut when she placed seventh as a freshman.

“I feel so excited,” Morse, who won CIF Southern Section Division III

crowns in the 400 and 800 this year to lead the Sea Kings to a team

title, said. “When I crossed the finish line, I just felt a sense of

relief that it was finally over.”

In winning the 800, she reclaimed the nation’s best time, which shattered

the previous best of 2:09.35. Morse’s time is the only sub-2:09 in the

nation among girls prep runners this season.

Her finish was all the more remarkable considering the fast times from

the rest of the field. Long Beach Wilson’s Ashley Freeman set an

extremely fast pace on the first lap before she started to fade. At the

split, half the field surpassed Freeman and Morse separated herself from

the rest of the pack with 300 meters left.

Morgan Banks of San Anselmo-based Sir Francis Drake was the runner-up

with a 2:09.10, the nation’s second-best time. Long Beach Poly standout

Angelita Green’s third-place time of 2:09.58 is the fifth-best in the

nation. And yet, Morse still won her race by more than a second.

“It was definitely important to get a personal record,” Morse said. Her

previous PR of 2:09.40 back in April was the nation’s top time for more

than a month. “I knew I had the capacity to reach 2:08, especially with

the conditions today,”

“You need to have two things to run a successful race,” Sumner said. “You

need to believe in yourself and you need luck, like good weather and help

from the competition. I think this was the first time she was pressed in

the 800 this year and that really pushed her.”

Morse’s 2:08.16 emboldened Sumner to mention one event that they never

seriously considered until now, the Olympic trials.

“We only needed a legitimate reason to talk about the Olympic trials,”

Sumner said. “Before this race, that was just that, talk. But the 2:08

makes it legitimate. She only needs to run three seconds faster and I

think she can do that.”Until then, Morse will celebrate with something

she stopped indulging in when she decided to concentrate on her workouts

this year, ice cream.

“She was going to eat a big ice cream sundae after the state meet,”

Sumner said. “Now, she’s going to eat one after every big race.

Everything after (state) is just icing on the cake.”

Morse will run in this weekend’s Golden West track and field championship

at Sacramento. She then has two more national races on the schedule

unless, as Sumner points out, she qualifies for the Olympic trials.

Costa Mesa freshman Sharon Day concluded a remarkable season with a

fifth-place finish in the girls high jump. Day cleared 5-8 on her second

attempt. Five other girls were also stuck at 5-8. Day got the fifth-place

tie with Niki Avery of Lemoore, with both missing three jumps.

“I thought I could do better since I cleared 5-8 before,” Day said.

Nevertheless, Day, the Division III champion whose 5-9 at the Masters is

tied for the fourth-best mark in the nation, picked up a medal (the top

six were medalists) just six days shy of her 14th birthday. Schquay

Brignac of Taft (Los Angeles) won the state crown with a leap of 5-9.