A Pair of Champions

SACRAMENTO —  One of them started the season as a highly touted running back who wanted to become better in football by improving his speed on the track.

The other was regarded as the heir apparent to Alexa Harz of Peninsula, last year’s state champion in the girls’ pole vault.

Neither of them was favored in their respective event when the state championships began at Hughes Stadium on Friday, but Justin Fargas of Notre Dame and Bridget Pearson of Hoover left the meet Saturday as champions in the boys’ 100 meters and the girls’ pole vault.

Fargas, a junior who rushed for 2,945 yards and 34 touchdowns during the 1996 football season, won the 100 in a wind-aided 10.52 seconds before 15,875 after pre-race favorite Sultan McCullough of Muir could only jog down the track after straining his right hamstring at the end of the 400 relay earlier in the meet.

Fargas got off to a good start and had a small lead over sophomore Daryl Rideaux of Long Beach Poly at the midway point of the race. Rideaux nearly drew even with Fargas at 75 meters, but Fargas powered away from him in the final 25 meters to defeat Mission League rival Miguel Fletcher of Alemany by .08 seconds with Rideaux third in 10.61.

The victory was the first by a Notre Dame athlete in the state championships and capped an incredible year for Fargas, who also ran a 47.3 anchor leg on the Knights’ 1,600 relay team that finished third in a school-record time of 3:14.53.

Although Fargas said he didn’t know of McCullough’s injury, he said it wouldn’t have changed his race strategy.

“I came into this race looking to win,” he said. “I wanted to get out well and put pressure on him. I wanted to make him come after me.”

McCullough, a junior, had run a wind-aided 10.24 to win the Division I title in the Southern Section divisional finals on May 24 while Fargas finished second in the Division III race in 10.47. McCullough had won the Southern Section Masters Meet with a wind-aided 10.28 on May 30 with Fargas third in 10.45, but Fargas said that after Friday’s preliminaries in the 100, he figured he had a chance to win.

“His time wasn’t that far ahead of mine,” Fargas said after he ran 10.70 in his heat and McCullough clocked 10.62.

Fargas did sympathize with McCullough, however.

“I do feel for him,” he said. “I wish it hadn’t happened. It would have been better for me if he hadn’t pulled up, but that’s the way it goes in sports sometimes.”

Pearson, a sophomore, knew the way Fargas felt because she won the pole vault at 12 feet after region record holder Heather Sickler of Camarillo failed to qualify for the final.

Sickler had cleared 12-3 1/2 to defeat Pearson in the Masters Meet, but with her out of the competition, Pearson’s chances of winning improved.

“I didn’t want that to happen to her,” she said. “But it did give me a whole new outlook on the competition. I came up here figuring that if we went by [personal records], I would get third. But then I just wanted to jump well and see what would happen.”

Pearson, who finished second in last year’s state meet, won the competition because she cleared 12 feet on her first attempt while second-place Marcia Lopez of Newark Memorial cleared it on her third, but that would never have been possible had Pearson not cleared 11-8 on her third--and final--attempt.

“I couldn’t even breathe when I took that jump,” Pearson said. “There was just so much at stake.”

Fletcher, Michelle Perry of Quartz Hill, Andrea Neipp of Highland and Eboni Grayson of Taft turned in the other top performances from the region.

Fletcher followed his runner-up finish in the 100 with a wind-aided 21.12 for third in the 200 behind Andre Ammons of Oakland Skyline, who ran 20.91, and Joseph Hunter of Vacaville, 21.03.

Perry turned in high-quality performances in three events, but she was disappointed after finishing second in the girls’ long jump with a wind-aided 19-6 1/4, fifth in the 100 high hurdles in 13.87 and sixth in the 100 in 11.98.

“I felt good in the long jump, but the hurdles were a disappointment,” she said. “I guess I’m not ready to run in the 13.7s yet.”

The UCLA-bound Perry hoped to hit a winning jump in the long jump in one of the early rounds so she could conserve her energy for the hurdles and 100, but she had to take all six of her jumps after Long Beach Poly junior Bunmi Oguneleye spanned 20-0 3/4 in the second round.

Neipp, the 1996 state Division II cross-country champion, led for the first seven laps of the girls’ 3,200, but finished a distant third behind Julia Stamps of Santa Rosa and Kristen Gordon of Concord Carondelet after they surged past her with 350 meters left.

Stamps ran a yearly nation-leading time of 10:15.17 to complete a victorious double in the 1,600 and 3,200 and Gordon ran a personal best of 10:19.84.

Neipp, who had run a then-nation leading 10:19.55 at the Pasadena Games in March, clocked 10:26.07.

Grayson, a junior, did not get off to a great start Saturday.

First, she had a shaky pass with freshman Deneeka Torrey on the first exchange of the 400 relay. Taft placed fifth in 47.23.

Then Grayson finished eighth in the 100 in 12.01.

But she followed that with a school-record time of 24.29 to place fourth in the 200 and ran the second leg on the Toreadors’ 1,600 relay team that finished third in a school record of 3:45.16.