James smokin’ fast: Freshman sprinter leads CCS

Much as he likes to see her in races, Community Colleges of Spokane track coach Larry Beatty gets as big a kick out of watching sprinter Chanel James in practice.

Well, not watching her so much as watching the men trying to keep up with her.

The Sasquatch have seldom had a sprint talent like James, a freshman from Wilson High School in Tacoma who was the State 4A 100 and 200 meters champion last spring. At last weekend’s Washington-Oregon dual at Spokane Falls, she won those two events and the long jump with a lifetime best 19 feet, 2 inches – and broke the 23-year-old school record in the 100 with an 11.90 clocking.

“There are days in practice where we’ll be doing 150s and she’ll jump in with some of the non-sprinter guys – long jumpers, maybe, who aren’t great in the 100 – and take it to them,” Beatty said. “They avoid her like the plague. You’ll see them all reshuffling, trying to get into a different group.

“The other day we had a couple of high school kids out from Northwest Christian who didn’t know what they were getting into and she just killed them.”

Off her high school bests of 11.81 (wind-aided) and 24.53, James was recruited to Washington State but failed to meet NCAA academic standards. The Cougars steered her to CCS – as they did with 7-foot high jumper Deonta Edwards of Colorado – where she’ll need to get her AA degree to become eligible at WSU.

“It hurt, I won’t lie,” James said. “But when you get a second chance, you need to take advantage of it. I love it here and I love the coaches, and if I have to be here two years I wouldn’t mind it at all.”

The long jump Saturday was her first foray over 19 feet and her 100 mark took Raetha Garnett’s 12.03 from 1985 out of the CCS record book, but she seemed just as excited about the 24.91 in “my first 200 since indoor,” she said, “so breaking 25 is huge for me.” She’s aiming for improvements to 11.50, 24.00 and 20 feet this season.

“It motivates me to set my goals high,” she said.

Sub-4 revisited

Four years ago, The Spokesman-Review researched the city’s fastest milers in history, still topped by the 3:59.2 Ferris’ Rick Riley ran for WSU at the 1970 Pac-8 championships. But if you include marks converted from 1,500 meters via the most widely accepted formula, University’s Erik Schmidt (Navy) heads the list with a 3:58.99 (from a 3:41.29 metric time).

Neither may be there for long. Last Saturday at the Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner Kersee Invitational, Mead graduate Laef Barnes of host UCLA became America’s 307th sub-4-minute miler with a 3:59.96 victory. That lopped five seconds from his previous best.

Indoors last month, another Mead grad made it into the Spokane top 20 – Evan Garber of Iona winning the IC4A championship in 4:07.98.

Opening the vault

Until recently, the University of Idaho hasn’t exactly been a haven for pole vaulters. That was probably due to the tastes of former men’s coach Mike Keller, who had three 16-footers in the mid-1980s but tired of their flighty sensibilities, a stereotype vaulters have a hard time living down.

But Melinda Owen and K.C. Dahlgren have been strong scorers for the Vandal women the past few springs, and now UI has another pair of men over 16 feet in Mike Carpenter and Lucas Pope. Carpenter got within an inch and a half of Steve Ott”s school record indoors with a 16-63/4 jump, and in winning the Pelluer Invitational last week at 16-3/4 was just a quarter-inch off Eric Van Zanten’s outdoor record.

And he’s high on the arrival of Pope, a Coeur d’Alene High School graduate who spent his freshman year at Idaho State – then transferred and won the Western Athletic Conference indoor title at 16-43/4.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever had a good vaulter to train with,” said Carpenter. “Sometimes in practice just to get going and vault by yourself is pretty hard. But if he’s there and going up also, it’s a confidence boost and it goes back and forth between us.”

Bell lap

More on that training-partner theory: While WSU’s Jeshua Anderson is opening eyes with his development in the 400 hurdles, teammate Barry Leavitt lowered his best in the event from 51.48 two years ago to 50.83 last weekend. … Another former Coug hurdler, John Cassleman, turned up in Spokane last weekend, coaching sprinters and hurdlers at Clark College. … Teams are scattered across the map this weekend – with WSU, Idaho and Eastern Washington sending athletes to California for the Mt. SAC Relays and satellite meets. Whitworth is at the NWC championships in Newberg, Ore., while CCS hosts the Duane Hartman Invitational at Spokane Falls. … Whitworth’s Kristen Dormaier had a big Pelluer. A 35-foot triple jumper, she broke Rosalie Pope’s 11-year-old school record of 36-4 three times, finishing at 37-1/4, a NCAA Division III qualifying mark.