Bakersfield.com: Kern County news, events, classifieds, shopping, & search

RSS Feed   Print Story   E-mail Story        

Jelmini wins discus at national meet; Ragans places 2nd

-- Californian staff report | Friday, Jun 20 2008 10:33 PM

Last Updated: Friday, Jun 20 2008 10:37 PM

Anna Jelmini was down to her final discus throw Friday, with a berth on the U.S. Track and Field Junior World Team at stake.

Nearly 1,000 miles away, Foothill High graduate Dayshan Ragans was becoming an All-American in the discus at the Nike Outdoor Nationals meet in Greensboro, N.C.

Jelmini, competing at the USA Track and Field Junior Championships at Ohio State, came up with her best throw of the meet on her final attempt: 173 feet, 1 inch.

That leapfrogged her past two competitors and gave her the victory in a meet featuring the nation's top 17-to-19-year-olds. An added bonus: it qualified Jelmini for the U.S. Junior World Team that will compete in Poland in July.

Jelmini, who just completed her junior year at Shafter High School, was the California state meet champion in the girls shot and discus earlier this month.

Friday's 173-1 was her third-best throw in the event, according to her coach, Matt Godbehere. Her lifetime best is 183-11.

Godbehere said Jelmini was in first place after the preliminaries. But Chinwe Okoro from Louisville and Erin Pendleton from Michigan both threw 164-8 to pull ahead of Jelmini in the finals, where each finalist gets three throws.

"It was pretty impressive," Godbehere said of Jelmini's final throw. "She had a tailwind, so it wasn't the best of conditions."

Jelmini will compete in the shot put on Sunday. She will return to Kern County for two days, then travel to Eugene, Ore., for the U.S. Olympic Trials next weekend.

Ragans was matched up against America's top high school throwers at the Nike meet.

He placed second in the discus with a 194-9. Ragans' personal best in the event is a 203-7.

Four of Ragans' competitors have reached 210 feet in the discus, according to Ragans' coach, Wayne Brewer. Mason Finley, who's from Colorado, placed first with a 206, Brewer said.

"When I came in here, I thought I'd have to go at least 200, that at least four guys would go over 200," said Ragans, who had never even been on a flight before Thursday's trip to North Carolina.

Relative humidity estimated at 75 percent made throwing the discus more difficult, Ragans said.

"You get sweaty hands when throwing in that condition," Ragans said. "You try to wipe it off with a towel and it's right back sweaty before you throw."

Ragans, the California state champion in the shot and discus, will compete in the shot today. He has accepted a track scholarship to Cal State Bakersfield.

Chris Schwartz, who just completed his junior year at Foothill, ran a personal-best 15 minutes, 6.53 seconds to place ninth out of 16 runners in the 5,000 meters at the U.S. Junior Nationals at Ohio State.

The eight runners who finished ahead of Schwartz were all competing for colleges. Matthew Centrowitz from the University of Oregon won the race in 14:44.67.