Solid, but still disappointed

NORWALK ? The Newport-Mesa area boasted some stellar performances at the CIF State Track and Field Championships on Saturday at Cerritos College. However, the athletes who executed them weren’t particularly pleased.

Area athletes brought home one state title, five second-place finishes, a fourth-place and a 16th-place finish. But the overriding feeling was one of disappointment.

Even Costa Mesa senior Jasmin Day, who brought home the only state title by clearing 5 feet, 9 inches in the high jump, was hoping for more.

“I’m not sure how I feel,” Day said. “It feels pretty good because I won the state title, but I’m disappointed that I didn’t clear 5-11,” Day said.

After the preliminaries on Friday, Day said her goal was to clear 6 feet. She didn’t attain that goal, but she was the only girl to clear 5-9, and she did it on her first try. It marked the first time this season Day had cleared 5-9.

“I felt relaxed when I was jumping, everything was there,” Day said. “I was close on my 5-11 attempts. My first jump, I barely hit the bar with my calf. I was barely skimming it.”

The Washington State-bound Day took second place in last year’s CIF state final. She was happy to take one step up on the medalists’ podium.

“It felt rewarding,” Day said. “I’ve been working really hard.”

Corona del Mar’s Annie St. Geme has been working as hard as anybody, but for once, it didn’t pay off for the long-distance star. St. Geme, the defending state champion in the 1,600-meter run, took fourth this year, then earned a bit of redemption with a solid second-place finish in the 3,200.

St. Geme set the pace in the 1,600 before falling a step behind Oak Ridge’s Alex Kosinski going into the last lap. Down the stretch, St. Geme’s pace slowed down considerably. In the last 100 meters, she was passed up by eventual winner Woodbridge’s Christine Babcock, Kosinski and Saugus’ Shannon Murakami.

“I think the heat was a little bit of a factor, but I’d never use that as an excuse,” St. Geme said. “Kosinski was pushing me hard the whole way and I wasn’t expecting her to do that.”

St. Geme said in retrospect, she could have approached the race with a different mind-set.

“I was trying to run a personal-best time,” St. Geme said. “Looking back, if I had not focused so much on my time, had I run differently, I would have had more gas at the end.”

Going into the 3,200, St. Geme responded by running a solid 10:18.91, good for second place in the state behind freshman phenom Jordan Hasay (10:13.55) of Mission Prep. St. Geme settled into second place during the third lap and stayed there the remainder of the race. Teammate Shelby Buckley took 16th place with a time of 11:20.61.

“I wanted to show everyone that it wasn’t simply a case of it not being my day,” St. Geme said. “Obviously, I’m really upset with how I did in the 1,600. But I think I did well in the 3,200. I started to gain on her in the end. If I had another lap or two, I might have been able to overtake her.”

Also turning in impressive performances were Newport Harbor’s Bo Taylor and Allison Stokke and Sage Hill’s Zach Chandy.

The UCLA-bound Taylor did better than expected in the shot put, finishing second behind Morse High’s Darius Savage with a personal-best distance of 63-11 1/4 . Savage, who is also slated to compete in track and field for UCLA next year, had to pop a personal-best 66-3 1/4 on his last throw to beat Taylor.

In the discus, again it was Savage as Taylor’s nemesis. Savage recorded a first-place distance of 205-6 on his third throw. Taylor settled for second place with a throw of 201-5.

In the preliminaries on Friday, Taylor set a meet record with a throw of 213-7.

“I had a decent day, but I should have done today what I did yesterday,” Taylor said.

Stokke, the state champion in the pole vault her freshman year, took second place overall at 12-9. Tori Anthony of Castilleja High was the only one to clear 13-3.

Sage Hill’s Zach Chandy struck a blow for the small schools with an impressive fourth-place finish in the 200. Chandy finished with a time of 21.39.dpt.04-track-3-CPhotoInfoN11RKSMK20060604j0betmncPHOTOS BY MARK DUSTIN / DAILY PILOT(LA)Costa Mesa’s Jasmin Day clears the bar during the girls’ high jump at Saturday’s CIF state track and field championships. Below, Newport Harbor’s Bo Taylor warms up in the boys’ discus throw, where he finished second. dpt.04-track-5-CPhotoInfoN11RKUJO20060604j0bev8nc(LA)dpt.04-track-2-BPhotoInfoN11RKUMD20060604j0bes5ncMARK DUSTIN / DAILY PILOT(LA)Corona del Mar’s Annie St. Geme, center, sets the pace early in the girls’ 1,600-meter final at the CIF state championships.