Torres to take his best shot at state

GLENDALE — With a long-coveted spot in the 3,200-meter race at Saturday’s CIF State Track and Field Championships at Buchanan High in Clovis, Zack Torres has reached the plateau of his high school track career.

Everything the Crescenta Valley High senior has done this season, and for much of his stellar Falcons tenure, has been leading up to this race, and it’s clearly a scenario Torres has entertained thoughts of.

“There’s gonna be so many big athletes, so much tough competition,” said Torres, who is seeded seventh with a time of 9 minutes 4.85 seconds in the 3,200, which will run at approximately 9 p.m. “The fastest, the toughest, the meanest, the nicest, the grimiest, there’s a little bit of everything up there.

“The smartest racers and the toughest, it doesn’t matter as long as you’ve raced in that race and that’s what I really live for, that ultimate competition of racing everybody in the state.”

Most of the runners lining up against Torres Saturday will be very familiar, as seven of the other nine seeded in the top 10 hail from the Southern Section and raced against Torres at Friday’s CIF Southern Section Masters Meet at Cerritos College in Norwalk, where Torres qualified for state.

Novato junior Erik Olson from the North Coast Section is the top seed and, at 8:55.06, is one of three runners in the race with a sub-9:00 seed time.

Southern Section Masters champion Heyden Wooff (8:57.66) of Adolfo Camarillo and Matt McElroy (8:59.91) of Huntington Beach Edison are seeded second and third, with South Pasadena’s Sam Pons (9:00.95), Burroughs’ Western Nelson (9:04.19) and Barstow’s Isaac Chavez (9:04.50) rounding out the top six.

Torres had no problem meeting the automatic qualifying time of 9:12.57 on Saturday, but didn’t come close to his secondary goal of winning a Masters title. His coach at Crescenta Valley, Mark Evans, noted after the race that Torres looked a little sluggish.

“I didn’t get that much sleep [for Masters] due to my academics,” said Torres, who left for Fresno today. “I’m going to be trying to get as much sleep as I can and as much rest to try to get a little more bounce in my step and a little bit more for that kick at the finish line and try to stay up with this competition.”

For weeks, Torres has talked of peaking in time for the state meet, something he is in good position to do, according to Evans.

“I think he looks a lot fresher this week,” Evans said. “We’re not doing anything really super tough because we don’t need to. Everything we needed to have done is done, so it’s just being fresh and ready to go.

“I think everything’s in place [for a peak at state]. The way I was planning it was that we could hold a peak for three weeks and that 9:04 was a good effort.

“I think he’s capable of running faster.”

Torres also thinks his best is yet to come.

“That’s been the goal all season,” he said, “to break 9:00.”

 GABRIEL RIZK covers sports. He can be reached at (818) 637-3226 or at gabriel.rizk@latimes.com.