National Scholastic Meet Turns Out to Be a Semi-Final

The National Scholastic Outdoor track and field championships were expected to be the final meet of the season for many of the region’s top athletes, but with the state meet rescheduled for June 19 at Cerritos College, the meet will serve as a tune-up instead.

It will be a very high-quality tune-up as more than 500 athletes from 47 states are expected to compete in the two-day meet, which will start tonight at Birmingham High and conclude Saturday at UCLA’s Drake Stadium.

The boys’ 110-meter high hurdles field, which includes Drue Powell of Reseda High and Jason Medearis of Hart, appears to be the strongest in the meet as 11 athletes have run 14.11 seconds or faster this season.

The boys’ 800 meters, mile and high jump are also expected to have heavyweight fields.

Five entries in the 800 have run 1 minute 50.46 seconds or better, five athletes in the mile have run under 4:13 for 1,600 meters, and three individuals have cleared 7 feet 2 inches or higher in the high jump.

Ryan Wilson of Agoura, who timed 4:12.82 to win the 1,600 in the Masters Meet last month, is seeded fifth in the mile.

Jeremy Fischer of Camarillo, who has a personal best of 7-2 in the high jump, is expected to meet Billy Green (7-3 1/2) of Louisiana and Jamal Green (7-3) of Texas in the high jump.

“Jeremy’s going for it this week,” Camarillo boys’ Coach Dennis Riedmiller said. “There’s no holding back. We’ll worry about the state meet when we get to it.”

Fischer, a 5-9 junior, has cleared 7 feet or higher in six meets this season.

Jeff Nadeau of Monroe, the state leader at 7-2 1/4, will compete in the Golden West Invitational at American River College in Sacramento on Saturday.

Andre DeSaussure of Taft, Jesse Stern of Harvard-Westlake and Nada Kawar of Crescenta Valley are other leading entries from the region.

DeSaussure, who won the boys’ 100, 200 and 400 in last month’s City Section championships, is expected to compete in the 200.

Stern will compete in the pole vault and Kawar has entered the girls’ shotput.

Today’s events start at 7 p.m. with the finals of the girls’ 300 low hurdles. That will be followed by qualifying heats in the boys’ and girls’ sprint events and the finals of the boys’ and girls’ 1,600 relays.