There’s No Joy as Taft Repeats

The Taft High boys’ track and field team capped a difficult day by winning the City Section championships Thursday night at Birmingham High.

The Toreadors, led by senior Chris Morgan and sophomore Noah Smith, defeated Birmingham, 76-60 1/2, to repeat as champion and win their fourth title.

The title came several hours after team members were informed that assistant coach Neil Boggess is in a coma and on life-support systems at Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center after suffering bleeding in the brain Wednesday night, according to hospital spokesman Ron Yukelson.

“This was for him,” Morgan said. “We had a prayer for him on the bus before we came here. We wanted to do this for him.”

Morgan, defending state champion in the 110-meter high hurdles, accounted for 26 1/2 of Taft’s points and had a hand in two state-leading marks in the meet in which the top three finishers in each event advanced to the state championships at Hughes Stadium in Sacramento on June 1-2.

Morgan, who signed with Arizona State on Tuesday, won the high hurdles in a career-best 13.89 to trim one-hundredth of a second off his previous state-leading time and solidify his hold on fourth on the all-time region list.

He teamed with Steve Smith, Peiman Lahsaei and Noah Smith--no relation to Steve--to win the 400 relay in a state-leading 41.21. The time moved the Toreadors to third on the all-time region list.

Morgan placed second in the long jump at 22-4 and third in the 100 in a season-best 10.94.

Smith, hampered by injuries much of last season, placed second in the 100 in 10.84, second in the 200 in a career-best 21.47 and helped Taft finish second in the 1,600 relay in a season-best 3:16.53.

Senior Adam Goldberg of Birmingham won the pole vault at 13-6, and sophomore teammate Damian Rinaldi used a big kick to finish second in the 800 in 1:57.82 and second in the 1,600 in 4:27.08.

Cleveland finished third with 45 points as senior Jason Lovell won the 400 in a state-leading 47.03 and anchored a victory in the 1,600 relay in a state-leading 3:15.10.

The 400 time moved Lovell to fourth on the all-time region list and the 1,600 clocking moved Cleveland to sixth.

Birmingham, runner-up to Taft the previous three years, won its first girls’ title with a 100-74 1/2 victory over Cleveland.

Senior Melissa Astete cleared a meet-record 12-7 to win her fourth consecutive pole vault title and lead the Patriots to a 1-2-3 finish.