Baldwin Takes 100, 200 Titles

SACRAMENTO — Sprinter Jasmine Baldwin of La Puente Bishop Amat was aware of the talk.

So the soft-spoken senior walked the walk in the state track and field championships at Hughes Stadium on Saturday, winning the girls’ 100 meters in the second-fastest time in the nation this year and the 200 in the fastest time.

On a day when Long Beach Poly won its second consecutive girls’ team title -- and third in four years -- with a national-record time in the 1,600 relay to end the meet, Baldwin proved her victories over Poly’s Shalonda Solomon in the Southern Section Masters Meet were no fluke.

“I knew that people were talking about me and everything,” Baldwin said when asked if she was aware that many expected Solomon to beat her in the state meet. “But that gave me more courage to just come out here and fight and win.”

Solomon, the runner-up in the 100 and 200 in the previous two state championships, led Baldwin out of the blocks twice Saturday. But Baldwin inched past her in the last 30 meters of both races to post winning times of 11.33 seconds and 22.86.

The 100 time moved Baldwin to 12th on the all-time national performer list and her 200 clocking moved her to fourth.

Solomon, who ran a season-best 11.41 in the 100 and a career-best 22.92 in the 200 to move to seventh on the all-time national list, also ran the anchor legs on teams that won the 400 relay in 45.11 and the 1,600 relay in 3:35.49, cutting six-hundredths of a second off last year’s mark.

Poly, which also received winning performances from senior Jasmine Lee in the 400 with a season-best 52.93 and from sophomore Shana Woods in the long jump with a career-best 20-foot 7 3/4-inch effort, totaled a meet-record 80 points to defeat runner-up Union City Logan by 30 points.

Four other athletes from the Southland were victorious in individual girls’ events, including senior Lindsay Flacks of North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake, who won the 3,200 in a career-best 10:26.25 after falling on the first lap.