Davis does it again at CIF

WALNUT — That little extra weight on the back shoulders of Glendale High junior Michael Davis was the collective aspirations and interest of a region at the CIF Southern Section Track and Field Championships at Mt. San Antonio College on Saturday.

When Davis finished second in the Division I boys' 200-meter dash in a time of 21.40 seconds, he earned advancement to Friday's Masters Meet at Cerritos College not just for himself, but for the collective La Cañada-Glendale-Burbank area, as Davis was the region's lone qualifier.

"I wasn't thinking about qualifying as much as doing my best," Davis said. "I wasn't happy with my time in the 100 and had to do better."

Davis' mark of 21.40 was an improvement upon his seeded time of 21.58 and was fifth-best overall in easily hitting the top-nine barrier to advance in track events.

Davis' motivation for the 200 was his third-place effort in the Division 1 boys' 100 race in which he finished in 10.76, but did not qualify as the mark was 12th overall.

Other than Davis, Saturday was indeed an elimination fest, impacting even some of the area's top athletes.

St. Francis senior James Knowles survived in neither his 110- or 300-meter hurdles competition.

Knowles entered with the fourth-best seeded time of 14.55 seconds in the Division III 110 hurdles, but struggled to a seventh-place finish in 15.11 and outside the final nine who moved onto Masters.

"I hit that first hurdle and I just had trouble getting back," a disappointed Knowles said. "There was a little bit of a tail wind, but this is frustrating because you work hard to get here and then this happens."

Knowles was unable to recover in the 300 hurdles, where with a 38.16, which also missed the cut.

Burroughs' Anthony Monroy, the reigning All-Area Boys' Cross-Country Runner of the Year, also missed the cut when he finished ninth in the Division I 3,200 in 9:37.79.

Despite the setbacks, there was some good local news in Division IV, where the brothers duo of Gareth and Barrett Weiss both broke personal bests in tying for a championship with vaults of 12 feet 9 inches.

"Any time you win, it's special," said Barrett, who entered with a personal-best mark of 12-6.

"I still can't really believe it, we were just trying to do our best and I didn't expect this," said Gareth, whose best prior was 12 feet.

Unfortunately, the mark of 12-9 did not qualify the duo for the Masters Meet.

Rebels junior West Nowotny continued a small, but strong day for the Flintridge Prep boys.