Hickok Second at City Prelims

Palisades High junior Kristabel Doebel-Hickok finished second in her heat in the girls’ varsity division at the City Section preliminaries meet Monday afternoon at Pierce College in Woodland Hills. Doebel-Hickok ran the three-mile switchback course in 19:29. She was 35 seconds behind winner Emma Hartell of Birmingham, the two-time defending City champion. Doebel-Hickock beat Hartell by 30 seconds in a nonleague meet at Griffith Park in October. Doebel-Hickock’s personal-best of 18:37 came at three weeks later at the Woodbridge Invitational in Irvine, where she was seventh out of 238 runners in her division. At the prelims, Birmingham finished with five runners in the top nine and a team time of 1:40:14, two seconds faster than the other heat winner, San Pedro. El Camino Real junior Sarah Roth won the second heat in 18:55. San Pedro runners took four of the remaining top 10 spots. Overall, Doebel-Hickok posted the fifth fastest time and easily qualified for this Saturday’s finals meet, also at Pierce. The girls’ varsity race begins at 9 a.m. Neither of the Dolphins’ varsity teams qualified for the City finals. Monroe, San Pedro, Birmingham, Taft, Garfield, Venice, Narbonne, Banning, Los Angeles and Belmont qualified for the boys while Birmingham, San Pedro, El Camino Real, South Gate, Taft, Granada Hills Kennedy, Roosevelt, Garfield, Belmont and Eagle Rock qualified for the girls. –STEVE GALLUZZO