Locals qualify for state

It’s on to State for Huntington Beach High’s Chrissy Van Doornum.

Van Doornum, a senior, cleared 11-feet-8 in the girls’ pole vault at last Friday’s CIF-Southern Section Masters meet at Cerritos College in Norwalk. She tied for third place with Michelle McNamara of Covina and Lauren Radke of Oak Christian in an event won by Allison Stokke (13-3 1/2 ) of Newport Harbor High School.

Van Doornum hit all of her heights on her first attempt and went out of the competition at 12-3, Oilers Coach Kim Clarke said.

“I could not be more proud of Chrissy,” Clarke said. “I have coached her for four years in volleyball and three in track. She is one-of-a-kind and I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to work with her.”

Clarke said that Van Doornum first took up the pole vault as a sophomore. A year later, she had qualified for CIF both in the vault and 400-meters

“Other coaches on the team wanted me to have her stop jumping and vaulting and just run, but she just wanted to vault and I like my athletes to be happy,” Clarke said. “Happy athletes are more likely to put the team in front of themselves and Chrissy had done that week after week, running the 200, 400, 4 x 100 when needed, anchoring the 4 x 400, whatever we asked her to do.

“She shared the track athlete of the year for us and earned the ‘Garbage Gal’ of the year award for us, for all the reasons I mentioned.”

Also moving on to State meet out of the Masters meet is Edison sophomore Meghan Foley who ran a 2:10.47 and finished in third place in the girls’ 800-meter run.

Hillary Hayes, another Edison sophomore, went 4:57.38 to finish in 10th place in the girls’ 1,600 meter run.

In CIF softball

Marina nearly pulled off the big upset of the playoffs on May 24 but the Vikings, playing on the road in Valencia, fell to top-ranked, top-seeded Valencia, 1-0, in a quarterfinal game that took 10 innings to decide.

Valencia, ranked No. 1 nationally in several prep polls, scored on a bases-loaded single in the bottom of the 10th to survive a Marina team that started three freshman and a new infield this year.

Pitcher Jordan Taylor (30-0), who will play at Michigan next year, struck out 19 but still had to withstand two close plays at the plate to keep Marina off the scoreboard.

Michelle Fuzzard, who has a scholarship to play at Chattanooga, Tenn., beginning next year, pitched a complete game for Marina and struck out nine.

Valencia entered the game with a 29-1 record.

Marina, which had six hits off Taylor, including two by Mariah Noguiera, finished the year 21-11. The Vikings were the Sunset League runner-up.

All three playoff games Marina played this year were decided by 1-0 scores, two of which were decided in extra innings.

“I told the girls before the game to leave it all on the field,” said Marina Coach Shelly Luth whose Vikings reached the quarterfinal round for the first time in eight years. “They had nothing to lose and everything to gain and I firmly believe they left it all on the field. We outplayed them and did just about everything right to win this game, but we didn’t get that break that you need to beat a team that was 29-1.

“I’m really proud of these girls. They had great teamwork.”