Prelims

Qualifying to Saturday's CIF Southern Section Track and Field Divisional Championships at Mt. San Antonio College required the local entrants who earned such advancement to turn in very good results at last weekend's divisional prelims all over Southern California. This weekend, however, the bar will be raised from very good to exceptional. Of course, that's to be expected as divisional championships and CIF-Southern Section Masters Meet berths are on the line with the trip to Cerritos College available for the top 12 finishers in the 800-meter, 1,600-meter and 3,200-meter runs and top nine in every other event.

SWIMMING Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy in Mission League prelims: A slew of Tologs fared well Monday in the prelims at L.A. Valley College and will next compete in the finals at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at the same venue. In the 200-yard medley relay, Meg Ryan, Emily Balog, Katie Altmayer and Eva Dulcich took first in 1:58.92. Altmayer won the 200 freestyle (1:59.24), Ryan finished first in the 100 freestyle (56.12) and Balog took first in the 100 backstroke (1:11.14).

BOYS' TRACK AND FIELD St. Francis in CIF Southern Section Division III preliminaries : Reigning All-Area Boys' Track and Field Athlete of the Year James Knowles ran to a return berth in next week's finals at Cerritos College. "This is just to get him ready for next week," said St. Francis Coach Patrick Donovan of Saturday's prelims at Estancia High. "[His results were] what we were hoping for. " Knowles won his heat in the 300-meter hurdles with a personal-record time of 38.12 seconds, which was third-fastest across the board.

BOYS' TRACK AND FIELD Pacific League prelims at Arcadia High: Numerous area athletes qualified for Friday's upcoming Pacific League finals with top-nine, or in some events, top-12 performances on Friday. Area winners included Glendale's Michael Davis in the 100-meter dash (11.06 seconds) and 200 (22.08), Burroughs' Anthony Monroy in the 1,600 (4:22.55) and Crescenta Valley's Josh Strachewski in the 110 hurdles (15.75) and 300 hurdles (41.29). Other qualifiers for CV were James Maturan in the 100 and 200, Hayden O'Burke in the 100, Justin Springfield in the 200 and 400, Alex Damla in the 400, Adam Akopyan in the 400, Mike Duncan in the 800 and 1,600, Nick Beatty in the 800, Aaron Esparza in the 800 and 1,600, Davit Shahamanyan, and Cody Heidenreich in the 110 hurdles and Mike Jaramillo in the 110 and 300 hurdles.

Charles Rich It's a good thing that Pat Donovan's running marks have reduced gradually. Even if it took a remarkable performance from the St. Francis High boys' cross-country runner to set a personal-best mark on one of the more demanding courses he's encountered. Donovan clocked 16 minutes 18 seconds on the three-mile Crescenta Valley Park course Wednesday to help St. Francis finish third with 85 points at the Mission League final. L.A. Loyola (19)

Erik Boal If there was one local athlete who was a safe bet to advance to the CIF Southern Section-Toyota Track and Field Championships out of Saturday's preliminaries, it was Lindsay Fletcher. But the Flintridge Prep junior won't be the only area standout competing at Cerritos College during Saturday's event. She'll have 17 other individuals making the trip to Norwalk, including 11 of her Rebel teammates and male counterparts. Fletcher posted the second-fastest qualifying marks in the 100- and 200-meter events at the Division IV prelims at Moorpark High -- trailing Woodland Hills Louisville sophomore Elizabeth Olear in both events -- in addition to helping Flintridge Prep's 400 and 1,600 relay teams qualify for the final with the third-fastest times in each race.

LOS ANGELES - Since the end of last summer, Kayla Montgomery has experienced her share of discomfort. Forced to deal with nagging pains in her hip and both knees, the talented Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy track and field athlete has still managed to flourish in her multiple races. She temporarily brushed aside the soreness Thursday at the Mission League finals at Occidental College and managed to extend her season in several events. “I had to go out there and push myself through the pain,” said Montgomery, who qualified in the 400-meter race with a fourth-place finish in a personal-best mark of 59.02 seconds.

GLENDALE — More than a dozen athletes from the Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy and St. Francis High track and field teams participated in the Mission League finals Thursday at L.A. Valley College. While none of them captured league supremacy, many of them punched their ticket to the CIF Southern Section division prelims. Eight Tologs and two Golden Knights will compete in the prelims, which will be held May 15 at different venues. Sacred Heart received five second-place finishes to reach the Division IV prelims at Carpinteria High.

GLENDALE — Jumping up a level to CIF Southern Section Division I has considerably diminished the presence the Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy swimming team will have at Friday’s final meet at Mount San Antonio College, compared to each of the last two seasons, when the Tologs were a force at the Division II finals. Crescenta Valley High’s boys’ team, on the other hand, has a good chance to advance a bigger group of swimmers to championship heats of Saturday’s Division II final than in previous seasons in Friday’s Division II prelims.

GLENDALE — The Glendale Community College men’s and women’s track and field teams’ efforts in Saturday’s Western State Conference finals at Moorpark College resulted in four individual conference titles for the Vaqueros and even more qualifications for the upcoming Southern California prelims. Amid sweltering heat, Vivien Wadeck captured conference championships in the 1,500 and 5,000 meters to lead the women’s team to a second-place finish with 140.5 points, while Michael Flowers became conference champion in the 3,000-meter steeplechase for the ninth-place men’s team (40 points)

Qualifying to Saturday's CIF Southern Section Track and Field Divisional Championships at Mt. San Antonio College required the local entrants who earned such advancement to turn in very good results at last weekend's divisional prelims all over Southern California. This weekend, however, the bar will be raised from very good to exceptional. Of course, that's to be expected as divisional championships and CIF-Southern Section Masters Meet berths are on the line with the trip to Cerritos College available for the top 12 finishers in the 800-meter, 1,600-meter and 3,200-meter runs and top nine in every other event.

Six local schools participated Saturday in the CIF Southern Section Division prelims at various locations across Southern California. The following is a roundup of those who advanced to the CIF finals next Saturday. DIVISION I BOYS Crescenta Valley and Glendale at Trabuco Hills High: Michael Davis of Glendale and Gabe Collison of Crescenta Valley punched their tickets to the division finals on Saturday at Mount San Antonio College. Davis, who advanced to the state meet in the 200-meter dash last season, clocked 21.41 in the event Saturday to take third.

GIRLS' SWIMMING Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy at CIF Southern Section Division I prelims: Kirsten Vose put herself in a good position to win her first CIF title Thursday at Riverside City College. The sophomore won both her preliminary races in the 200-yard individual medley and 100 breaststroke in respective times of 2:03.47 and 1:03.27. The Division I finals will take place Saturday at 5 p.m. with the top nine finishers in each race Thursday swimming in championship races Saturday and the 10th to 18th swimmers taking part in a consolation final.

LOS ANGELES - Since the end of last summer, Kayla Montgomery has experienced her share of discomfort. Forced to deal with nagging pains in her hip and both knees, the talented Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy track and field athlete has still managed to flourish in her multiple races. She temporarily brushed aside the soreness Thursday at the Mission League finals at Occidental College and managed to extend her season in several events. “I had to go out there and push myself through the pain,” said Montgomery, who qualified in the 400-meter race with a fourth-place finish in a personal-best mark of 59.02 seconds.

PASADENA - It's right back to the semifinals of the Pacific League boys' tennis tournament for Emile Ohanyan. Drenched in sweat while playing through the escalating temperatures Monday, the Hoover High standout faced a stiff test during the second of two tournament rounds at Pasadena High. PHOTOS: Pacific League boys' tennis The fourth-seeded Ohanyan survived, posting a 6-4, 2-6 (10-2) second-round win against fifth-seeded Arin Meserkhani of Glendale. "The second round was really tough," said Ohanyan, who opened with a 6-0, 6-0 first-round victory against Young Peak of Crescenta Valley and will make his second straight appearance in the semifinals.

While eight schools will at least send one representative to next week's Pacific League track and field finals at Arcadia High, at least locally, the biggest contingent will hail from Crescenta Valley High. That's because the Falcons qualified 30 of the total 44 local competitors out of Friday's preliminaries held at Arcadia High. Overall, 16 qualifying positions were taken by Crescenta Valley girls, including five entrants in two events. Sophomore Megan Melnyk may represent the Falcons' best chance at taking home two events as the long-distance runner advanced in both the 1,600-meter run (second, 5 minutes 22.82 seconds)

BOYS' SWIMMING Flintridge Prep at Prep League prelims: The Rebels won 10 of the 11 events at Pasadena Poly Thursday. Carlo Sivilotti, Bruce Park and Marco Flores each had their hands in four victories for Flintridge Prep. Sivilotti, Bruce Park, Kevin Park and Marco Flores made up the Rebels' victorious 200-yard medley and 400 freestyle relay teams. They won both with CIF Southern Section Division IV automatic times of one minute 44.04 seconds in the medley and 3:23.89 in the freestyle.

The message has been sent out to her band of talented runners - visualize one of the toughest courses in the state before attempting to conquer it. It might be a difficult task, yet Flintridge Prep boys' cross-country Coach Ingrid Herskind said she's confident the Rebels can handle it when they take part in the CIF Southern Section finals today at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut. “It's a tough course, but we know it and it's one of our favorite courses,” said Herskind, whose team will take to the rugged 2.91-mile course in the Division V race at 7:45 a.m. “We are really excited because we've been running well the last couple of races.

While goals vary from race to race, the unifying objective for Saturday's CIF Southern Section cross-country preliminaries at Mt. San Antonio College was to advance to the following week's CIF Southern Section Finals. It was a goal that local squads Crescenta Valley, Flintridge Sacred Heart and Flintridge Prep met with little troubles as all three now head into the biggest week of the season. "The good thing for us is that we're in Division V and so we can relax a bit at prelims and not have to worry like the teams in Division I," Flintridge Prep boys coach Ingrid Herskind said.

LA CRESCENTA - With Pacific League titles hanging in the balance, both Crescenta Valley High cross-country contingents set their sights on reigning champion and archrival Arcadia. For the Falcons' girls' squad, though, the race may have ultimately been decided more than four hours before the meet when it was learned that illness would keep one of the team's top five out of the race. As for the boys, who, like the girls, split the previous league meets with Arcadia, they simply got the very best the Apaches, ranked No. 1 in CIF Southern Section Division I, had to offer.