SPORTSCOPE : Individual Titles Lure Athletes at State Meet

San Gabriel Valley high schools may be out of the race for the team title but several area athletes are expected to be in strong contention for individual honors at the state high school track and field championships on Friday and Saturday at Cerritos College.

Field events start at 3 p.m. Friday and 5 p.m. Saturday and running events at 5 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday.

Walnut’s Juliana Yendork will be defending her long and triple jump championships. Yendork, a senior, set a national prep record of 43 feet 6 1/4 inches in the triple jump at the Masters Meet at Cerritos last week. She also had the top qualifying mark of 20-4 1/4 in the long jump.

Three other girls from the valley will compete in two events each. They are Phetima Woods of Duarte in the 100-meter low hurdles and 100-meter dash, Shonna Bernard of Nogales in the 100 and 300 low hurdles and Myra Smith of Workman in the shot put and discus.

The top title contenders among the boys may be Tyrone Edwards of Nogales in the long jump and Don Jackson of Duarte in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles. Edwards, a senior who will attend UC Berkeley on a football scholarship in the fall, leads the state with a wind-aided best of 24-2 1/2 and has a legal best of 23-8. Jackson ranks among the state leaders with his best of 37.64 seconds in the 300 hurdles last week.

Other possible contenders include Matthew Harding of San Dimas in the 100 and 200 meters and Angel Martinez of San Gabriel in the 3,200 meters. Martinez finished first in the 3,200 at 9:01.36 at the Masters Meet and Harding has run 10.66 seconds in the 100 and 21.47 seconds in the 200.

Muir has the most participants competing of any area school with three boys and four girls.

Eight high schools from the San Gabriel Valley are among 65 Southern Section schools that have been named winners of the ninth annual Shake for Sportsmanship Awards.

The schools include Bonita of La Verne, Mountain View of El Monte, Bassett of La Puente, Pasadena, Pasadena Poly, San Marino, Nogales of La Puente and Covina.

The schools were honored prior to the Dodger-Houston Astro game Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium.

Mt. San Antonio College of Walnut has named Diane Looker as its full-time women’s basketball coach for next season.

Looker has coached the men’s team the past two seasons. The Mounties have reached the state community college playoffs two seasons in a row and Looker has an overall record of 41-19.

Looker was named South Coast Conference coach of the year after guiding Mt. SAC to a 20-9 record and the second round of the playoffs in her first season.

The Mounties were 21-10 last season and lost in the first round of the playoffs.