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Lightfoot, Erdman finish 7th and 9th, respectively; Perez places 9th in 1,600

JOSEPH D'HIPPOLITO
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

NORWALK - All three of the Redwood Empire's representatives in the finals of the CIF
State Track and Field Championships had to confront something besides the opponents in
their respective events Saturday.

In the shot put, Maria Carrillo's Jean Lightfoot and Healdsburg's Daniel Erdman
responded differently to a similar lack of confidence.
In the boys' 1,600-meter race, Lower Lake's Mike Perez had to deal with a five-week-
old congestion that drained him of the strength that made him one of the state's best.
Lightfoot emerged as the most successful of the three. The senior took seventh in
the girls' shot put with a throw of 42 feet, 9½ inches in front of 10,109 at Cerritos
College's Falcon Stadium.
Erdman and Perez finished ninth in their events.
Erdman's best throw in the boys' shot put, 54-1, was more than 12 feet shorter than
the winning throw of 66-3¼ by Darius Savage from San Diego's Morse High.
Perez - who has run a personal best of 4 minutes, 9.91 seconds - finished the boys'
1,600 in 4:19.61.
Lightfoot's seventh-place finish provided personal redemption for barely missing last
year's state meet in Sacramento.
"My whole goal at the beginning of the year was to make it to state," said Lightfoot,
who will continue her track career at UC Santa Barbara. "I missed it last year by an
inch in the discus."
But the possibility of not reaching her goal caused Lightfoot tremendous anxiety
during Friday's preliminaries. As a result, she failed to qualify for the finals in
the discus.
"I was extremely nervous," Lightfoot said. "Oh my gosh, I can't believe how nervous
I was. I had a really bad Friday."
Saturday, however, proved to be different.
"I just relaxed," Lightfoot said, "and convinced myself that I'm here for a reason."
Erdman, however, had more difficulty with his emotions after breaking the school's
41-year-old shot-put record in Friday's preliminaries.
"I kind of felt deflated," the senior said. "I guess I felt I had accomplished my mission.
"Everybody was throwing so much farther than me. I guess it was kind of intimidating,
but I really didn't think of it too much."
Perez began by placing himself in striking distance of the top two finishers in December's
FootLocker Cross County Championships: A.J. Acosta from Oceanside's El Camino High
School and Michael Coe from Cabrillo in Lompoc.
"The first two laps were comfortable," Perez said. "I just wanted to get out near the
front, and I was able to do that early."
The Lower Lake senior shared fourth place with Marlon Patterson from Elk Grove's
Franklin High for 600 meters. Then came the collapse.
"The pace was really fast and it was really tough," said Perez, who was coughing loudly
after the race. "My legs got heavy. My feet got hot. It was downhill from there."
Perez had been taking antibiotics and using an inhaler after seeing a doctor two weeks ago.
"The last month, I haven't been 100 percent," Perez said. "I've had a horrible cough.
I had fluid in my lungs. It's been just painful.
"I feel real bad just disappointing everybody."
Lower Lake coach Bob Galloway believes that Perez need not feel disappointed.
"I think it was a heroic effort for him to get out there and do this," Galloway said.
"He can't breathe. The rest of us could only imagine running that fast sick, even healthy."

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