CdM’s priority is to qualify

DOWNEY — Few events, save for graduation, hold more significance in a high school girl’s life than the prom.

Unless she’s a member of the Corona del Mar High track and field team, that is.

The painstaking hours spent trying on dresses, shopping for shoes and accessories, selecting makeup, styling hair, getting manicures, pedicures — even teeth-whitening — don’t stack up compared to five little minutes in Sacramento.

The CIF state finals are the same day as CdM’s prom, and because they take place in Sacramento, it eliminates any chance of the girls participating in both.

First though, they must they do well enough at the CIF Southern Section finals and the Southern Section Masters meet to qualify for the state finals.

Saturday at Warren High’s Justice Stadium, Allison Damon (5 minutes, .83 seconds), Shelby Buckley (5:02.22), Hilary May (5:06.34), and Sarah Cummings (5:01.44) took the top four spots in the 1,600 meters of the Southern Section Division III preliminaries to qualify for next week’s section finals at Cerritos College.

Throughout the year, and at the Pacific Coast League finals, the group has consistently run the 1,600 in less than five minutes.

At the PCL finals, Damon, Buckley, May, and Cummings became the nation’s first group of four girls from the same team to run the event in less than five minutes on the same night.

To Damon, the chance to do the same thing at the state finals means more than any silly old prom.

“I got asked and I just said, ‘well, I might have State that day, so you might want to ask someone else just in case,’” Damon said laughing.

The girls know two weeks in advance whether they qualified for the state finals, which happens if they match or beat the qualifying time at Masters.

“It depends on how long the guy wants to wait for you,” Damon said.

Buckley agreed, adding, “it’s a win-lose situation,” where they hope to miss prom, but then find themselves fighting that feeling.

The top nine athletes from each event advanced to the CIF Southern Section Division III finals, except in the girls’ 3,200 meter event. Because of a clock error, the top 11 finishers will compete at finals.

Tim Scott (4:21.45) qualified fourth and Thomas Hutchison (4:24.30) qualified eighth in the boys’ 1,600 meters for CdM.

May (2:15.97), Buckley (2:16.09), Damon (2:17.11), Kim Condino (2:17.59), and Cummings (2:15.44) qualified in the girls’ 800.

Cummings (10:56.66) and Damon (11:18.43) also qualified in the girls’ 3,200.

Spencer Aguilar ran the 110 meter hurdles and qualified sixth with 15:31 for CdM.

Claire Schmidt of CdM will be seeded sixth in the 400 meters with 58.57. Tiffany Liu, also of CdM, qualified fifth in the long jump with 17-03.75.

Liu qualified in the triple jump with 36-03 3/4 . She won four events at the PCL finals, but competed in three for CIF, including the 100 hurdles.

Thomas Dialynas (9:43.37) of CdM qualified in the boys’ 3,200.

Ryan Whites of Estancia qualified eighth with 40.74 in the boys’ 300 intermediate hurdles. The CdM girls’ 4x400 relay team qualified seventh with a time of 4:00.28.

The Costa Mesa girls, who won the Orange Coast League title — their second straight league championship — , also competed at the Division III preliminaries, but did not have any athletes who qualified.

For the Costa Mesa boys, Antwon Byrd, who won the 100 in the Orange Coast League, finished seventh in his heat in 11.32 seconds and did not qualify.

SORAYA NADIA McDONALD may be reached at (714) 966-4613 or soraya.mcdonald@latimes.com.