Runners Back on Track

Carlos Bustamante is expecting a breakthrough season this spring. Having qualified for the state finals in cross country in the fall, Palisades High’s top distance runner now has his sights set on the state track and field championships in June. “Obviously, the City finals are my first goal but of course I’d like to qualify for state,’ he said. ‘I’m taking it one race at a time but I feel good and I’m looking forward to the invitationals because that’s where the best competition is.” Bustamante got little competition Friday at Stadium by the Sea, where the Dolphins hosted a tri-meet against Taft and Carson. He easily won the mile (1600 meters) and two-mile (3200 meters), showing that he is one of the early-season favorites in the City Section. In the mile, his strongest event, Bustamante built a commanding lead by the time he circled Carl Lewis Track for the second of his four laps, but ran hard all the way to finish in a blazing 4 minutes, 34 seconds–one tick faster than the time he was shooting for. “This is my race,” he said. “This is the distance I’m most comfortable at right now. I started a little slower than usual but I made up for it at the end.” Having extended himself in the 1600, Bustamante nevertheless lapped half of the field less than an hour later in the 3200, cruising to victory in 10:08. The way he ran that race was opposite of the way he ran the mile. “I was shooting for a sub-10 but I started out a little too fast and couldn’t keep it up the last four laps,” Bustamante said. “I haven’t quite gotten my pacing down yet. I think maybe the mile took a little too much out of me as well.” Picking up where she left off last season was Erika Martin, who shook off an illness to post an impressive time of 14.43 seconds in the 100 hurdles. “That is a super time considering she was sick,” said Palisades Coach Ron Brumel, who was surprised when San Pedro Coach and longtime friend Bruce Thomson showed up late in the meet. “We’ve been focusing more on conditioning as a whole. We’re a little behind in the field events but today was a great day. Our boys’ 400 relay looked good and so many of our frosh/soph kids did well, too, like Eric Lopez, Deborah Abber and Kevin Strangeway.” Baseball So much for the weeklong hitting slump. After managing to score just one run in its previous three games the Palisades High baseball team broke out the bats in a big way Monday in its Western League opener against Los Angeles CES. The Dolphins plated seven runs in the sixth inning and were ahead 10-0 when the game was stopped in the sixth inning because of the 10-run mercy rule. It was Palisades’ first victory of the season after a tie and three losses and reiterated that the Dolphins are still the team to beat in their league. It appeared the Dolphins might get their offense on track in the last inning of last Friday’s Southern California Invitational game against San Fernando, loading the bases with one out. However, they were unable to capitalize and lost to the Tigers 4-0’the second straight game in which they failed to score. Palisades played LACES on Wednesday (result unavailable at press time) and travels to Westchester Friday at 3 p.m. Softball New coach Ray Marsden has Palisades’ softball program off to a fast start. The Dolphins have won two of there first three games and host perennial league rival Venice today at 3 p.m. Tennis In a showdown between potential Section champions, host Brentwood defeated Palisades, 13-5, last Thursday to avenge last year’s loss to the Dolphins. That time, the Eagles were without six of their top seven players–including No. 1 player and Palisades resident Walker Kehrer. Kehrer, among the best 18-and-unders in the nation, easily won his first two sets before sitting out the third rotation with Brentwood’s victory well in hand. “I’m a senior so, yeah, it’s important to win CIF. We’re confident we can go all the way.” Brentwood is a frontrunner for the Southern Section Division II title while Palisades is now the favorite to win the City Section, having beaten defending champion Taft to win the Fresno Tournament March 7. Palisades bounced back from its first loss by blanking University 7-0 on Monday at the Palisades Tennis Center. Justin Atlan, Max Licona Kyung Choi and Spencer Pekar easily won their singles matches while the doubles tandems of Che Borja-Jeremy Shore, Spencer Lewin-Kramer Waltke and Kenneth Choi-Eli Goodman lost a total of six games in six sets.