Bruins Have a Field Day Against Trojans : USC Sprinters Fare Well, but UCLA Men and Women Still Dominate

It didn’t seem likely that the USC track and field teams would upset, or even threaten UCLA Saturday in the annual dual meets at Drake Stadium.

Form prevailed. Even though the USC men outscored UCLA, 56-35, on the track, the Bruins had a field day in field events with a lopsided 58-12 advantage.

That added up to a 93-68 victory for UCLA, its 11th consecutive win over USC and 15th in the last 17 years.

UCLA’s women were even more dominating, winning, 101 1/2-28 1/2. That competition, if it can be called that, was decided early with UCLA clinching the meet, 73 1/2-7 1/2, after only nine events.

UCLA Coach Bob Larsen was concerned when he learned that hurdler Derek Knight wouldn’t be available after suffering another hamstring injury Thursday.

So Knight didn’t run, sprinter Mike Marsh only competed in the 400-meter relay and Olympic 400 gold medalist Steve Lewis was just confined to his speciality, not running in either relay--and the Bruins still won handily.

The Trojans didn’t help their own cause when star sprinter Quincy Watts was disqualified from the 100 for a false start and the team underachieved in the pole vault, long jump and javelin.

“I thought we had a chance early,” USC Coach Ernie Bullard said. “But we didn’t do a job in those field events. Overall we did a good job, but not a great one.”

Larsen said that USC had to “hit on every one of its numbers” to force a close meet. When that didn’t happen, UCLA breezed, as expected, without doubling up its distance runners, or requiring that Marsh and Lewis, who are recovering from leg injuries, to be used extensively.

Some of the highlights:

--USC’s Travis Hannah ran a strong third leg on the 400-meter relay team, providing Watts with a sizable lead as the Trojans won in 39.50 seconds.

--In one of the most competitive races of the day, UCLA’s Christian Cushing-Murray out-kicked USC’s Ray Griffin to win the 1,500 in 3:51.2.

--UCLA’s Jim Ortiz set a meet record of 8:50.31 in winning the 3,000-meter steeplechase.

--Watts had to surge in the last 20 meters to hold off the Bruins’ Chuckie Brooks in the 200. Watts’ winning time was 20.67.

Brooks won the 100 in a wind-aided 10.41 and also ran the anchor leg on the 1,600-meter relay. That was another competitive race, with USC’s George Porter making up ground on the third leg and Watts pulling away from Brooks as the Trojans won in 3:08.90.

Tonya Sedwick was impressive for the UCLA women. She won the long jump at 20 feet 5 1/4 inches and then battled USC’s Michelle Taylor down the final straight in the 200, winning in 23.48.

Taylor was impressive in the 400, winning in the school record time of 51.85.

UCLA’s Tracie Millett was also a double winner, in the javelin (172-11) and discus (175-1).

“I was very surprised that we scored over 100 points,” UCLA women’s Coach Bob Kersee said. “We started so well in the field events and USC had some injuries.”

Mike Bailey, USC’s women’s coach, was obviously not happy with his team.

“But we didn’t want to sacrifice some of our athletes (doubling them in events) because of injuries,” he said. “We didn’t want to take a gamble that they wouldn’t be healthy for the big meets, the Pac-10 and NCAA.”

USC, once a national power in track and field, is making a comeback in the track events. But there are gaping holes in the field events.

“We thought we had a weightman from Australia, but it didn’t work out,” Bullard said. “We need some blockers in the weight events to stop the dozen people that UCLA has.”

As expected, UCLA swept the shotput, discus and hammer throw and won the high jump for good measure. So that’s a 36-0 spread, an insurmountable barrier for the Trojans despite their solid performance on the track.

Larsen said, however, that if the meet was close, such as UCLA’s 77-77 tie with LSU April 15, he would have provided more activity for his star sprinters, Marsh and Lewis.

Track Notes

UCLA’s Steve Lewis won the 400 as expected in a hand-timed 45.1. USC freshman Travis Hannah was second in 45.4, a personal best. . . . Jim Bush, UCLA’s head track coach for 20 years, is now a volunteer assistant coach at USC. He was mildly booed when identified by the public address announcer. . . . UCLA Coach Bob Larsen was enthusiastic about the sprinting of Chuckie Brooks, who was recruited as a long jumper. “John Smith (UCLA sprint coach) has done a good job with Chuckie,” Larsen said. . . . UCLA had eight seasonal bests and four personal bests, including Dave Wilson, who won the shotput at 64-0 1/4. . . . A crowd of 3,610 watched the meet.