1930 Track: San Diego Struggled but Earned Second State Championship
San Diego High retained a share of its 1929 state championship after losing its Southern California title to Santa Ana.
The Hilltoppers returned 1929 state 100 and 220 champion Jimmy Willson, 440 champ Irvine (Cotton) Warburton, state mile champion Evan Dowers, and sprinter Fernando Ortiz, among others on a deep and talented roster.
How could they not win the Southern California title, especially after coach Glenn Broderick’s athletes had beaten the Santa Ana Saints, 68-44, in their Coast League dual meet showdown?
Travel, weather and a pulled muscle.
4/1/30
Jimmy Willson’s recovery from a leg injury sustained early in the season, was such that coach Glenn Broderick announced Willson would not compete in the Coast League Trials in four days.
Willson, out almost a month, appeared to reinjure himself last week, but Broderick was hopeful Willson would be able to go in the Southern Section trials April 26 at Los Angeles High.
4/5/30
Twenty-eight athletes, plus coach Glenn Broderick, left at 8:45 a.m. for the 90-mile trip to Santa Ana and the Coast League trials.
Long Beach Poly, which earlier forfeited a Coast loop dual meet to San Diego, qualified 33 entries to 24 for the Cavemen. They were followed by Pasadena, 18; Santa Ana, 13; Glendale, 7, and Alhambra, 3.
Fernando Ortiz led the Cavemen with victories of :10.1 in the 100 and :22.8 in the 220. Cotton Warburton was second in a :10.2 100 heat and second in a :51.6 440 trial, his first defeat of the year. Charlie Pierson took a 440 heat in 51.8.
Defending state champion Evan Dowers of the Cavers set a league record of 4:38 in the mile.
League bosses met beforehand and agreed that team point totals in the finals would decide the winner of the erstwhile Poly-San Diego dual.
San Diego unofficially led its Long Beach rival, 72 ½-60, at the end of the day.
4/10/30
Army-Navy outscored freshman teams from host Whittier College and La Verne College with 62 points to 43 and 8, respectively.
Holderman of the Warriors won the 100 in :10.5 and 220 in :23.5 and on the winning 880-yard relay team,
4/13/30
San Diego scored 48 ½ points to claim the team championship in the Coast League championships at Santa Ana.
The 880-yard relay team of Fernando Ortiz, Irvine (Cotton) Warburton, Charlie Pierson, and Ray Fletcher finished the day’s competition with a school and meet record of 1:30, bettering the 1927 mark by Glendale, which ran 1:30.2, and fastest this season in Southern California.
Long Beach Poly scored 36 ½ points, Santa Ana 32, Pasadena 14 ½, Glendale 8 ½, and Alhambra 3. San Diego, based on points in the league trials and finals, was declared winner of the canceled dual meet with the Jackrabbits, 87 ½-79 ½.
Other San Diego winners were Fernando Ortiz in the 100 (:10.1), Ray Russell in the discus (122-10 3/4), Warburton in the 440 (:51), Ray Fletcher in the 120-yard high hurdles (:16), and Evan Dowers in the mile (4:42.3).
The Hilltoppers had not lost in any competition since 1928 and they received strong performances from others:
Runners-up were Leonard Murray in the 880, Ray Fletcher in the 220 low hurdles, and Roy Holt, who tied for second, with a career high 11-foot, 6-inch pole vault.
Ray Russell, who earlier set a school shot put record of 49-6 ½, was third to the 49-10 ½ first place by Santa Ana’s Adam Paul, who also won the broad jump (22-7 ½) and 220 low hurdles in :25.
Paul broke the record of 48-6 1/2, set by San Diego’s Eddie Moeller in 1926.
4/15/30
Broderick had to find something to keep his team occupied for the next two weeks, in which they were not scheduled for competition.
Daily workouts and time trials were part of the routine.
4/22/30
The crack 880-yard relay team of Fernando Ortiz, Charlie Pierson, Ray Fletcher and Irvine (Cotton) Warburton ran 1:32 on the slow City Stadium track in practice.
What made the effort remotely newsworthy was that the foursome started with a Broderick-imposed 50-yard handicap and beat a pacing foursome of Richard Arguello, Barry Robertson, Ray Pollard, and Evan Dowers “by a safe margin,” according to The San Diego Union.
Only Arguello and Dowers had earned Broderick-determined points during the season, through the Coast League finals.
Fernando Ortiz led with 59 ½ points, followed by Ray Russell (49), Ray Fletcher (39), Irvine Warburton (31), Charlie Pierson (24 ½), Bill Larson (24), Leonard Murray (22), Evan Dowers (20), Roy Holt (15 ½),
Eddie Reed (15 ½), Jimmy Willson (15), and Richard Arguello (15).
Seven other scores ranged from 10-14. At least five of the track men also played for coach Mike Morrow’s baseball team: Warburton, Reed, Holt, Larson, and Bill Howell.
4/25/30
Coach Glenn Broderick and 14 San Diego High qualifiers left by private automobiles for Los Angeles and would spend the night before the CIF Southern Section trials the next day at L.A. High.
4/26/30
A staggering number of thinclads, reported in The San Diego Union to be as many as 985, converged on L.A. High’s Housh Field for a marathon of Southern Section quarterfinal and semifinals trials in Classes A, B, and C.
San Diego High’s 14-man contingent was reduced to seven.
Jimmy Willson, defending state champion in the 100 and 220, out for almost a month with a pulled leg muscle, was a nonqualifying fourth in the 100, but made it through two rounds of the 220 to qualify for the following week’s finals.
Willson was third to the :22.2 220 by L.A. Fairfax’ John McCarthy in his semifinal heat after earlier running second to the :22.6 of L.A. Jordan’s Ashley Burch.
Fernando Ortiz won his first heat in the 100 in 10.2 and a second later in the day in :10. Ortiz was second in the fifth heat of the 220, won by McCarthy in :22.6 but won his semifinal test in :22.8.
Cotton Warburton ran :52 for first in his 440-yard heat and Charlie Pierson was third in a :50.6 trial won by Jimmy LuValle of L.A. Poly. Evan Dowers won his mile test in 4:39. Ray Russell advanced in the shot put, won by John Lyman of Santa Monica at 52-3 1/2. The Hilltoppers’ 880-yard relay team won its trial in 1:31.6.
5/2/30
SOUTHERN SECTION DIVISIONAL, @SANTA ANA HIGH
Jimmy Willson, Fernando Ortiz, Irvine Warburton, Charlie Pierson, Evan Dowers, Ray Russell, and Ray Fletcher comprised the San Diego High delegation that was to defend its Southern California championship the following day at Los Angeles High.
Coach Glenn Broderick’s team was expected to battle Los Angeles’ Manual Arts, Fremont, Fairfax, and L.A. High; Inglewood, and Santa Ana, with 20 points predicted to be required for the championship.
The Hilltoppers were to leave today and overnight in Los Angeles.
5/3/30
Light rain did not prevent competition in the javelin and several lightweight class events, but significant rainfall following the opening 880-yard run caused postponement of the afternoon finals at the CIF Southern Section meet at L.A. High. Competition was scheduled to resume Tuesday, May 6.
Rathbun, deaf runner from Long Beach Poly, won the 880 in 2:02.6. Bill Howell of San Diego was fourth in the nonscoring javelin and qualified for the state meet.
5/4/30
CIF boss Seth Van Patten said finals would be held Wednesday, May 7, if rain persisted on May 6, but if rain continued on May 7, the finals would not take place.
In a May 7 rain scenario Van Patten, L.A. High principal Ernest Oliver, and local track-and-field official Jim Reinhardt would select competitors for the state meet in Berkeley.
Van Patten did not look forward to what would be a thorny proposition.
“The best method would be to pick names out of a hat,” wrote Irving Eckhoff of the Los Angeles Times.
5/6/30
SOUTHERN SECTION FINALS, @L.A. HIGH
The weatherman cooperated.
Santa Ana, coached by former San Diego High junior varsity football coach Gerald (Tex) Oliver, won the Southern Section team championship with 17 points to runner-up San Diego’s 15.
Two, long bus rides (131 miles each way) in four days from San Diego to Los Angeles High, including on the morning of the finals, worked against the Hilltoppers, suggested various pundits, although the winning Saints’ trip from Santa Ana (40 miles each way) was no neighborhood stroll.
San Diego won two events.
Evan Dowers’ stretch drive overtook L.A. Manual Arts’ favored Jim Lawrence and Dowers repeated as mile champion in 4:32.6.
San Diego’s team of Ortiz, Willson, Charlie Pierson, and Warburton won the 880-yard relay in 1:31.4.
But Fernando Ortiz was second in the 100 to the :10 of Huntington Beach’s Alvin Koenig, who was forced to forced to run 101 yards after being flagged for a false start, and Ortiz and Jimmy Willson were unplaced in the 220, won by Koenig in :22.6
Irvine (Cotton) Warburton was third in the 440 behind the :50.2 of Carl Satterfield of Manual Arts.
Santa Ana was led by Alvin Paul, who won the 220 hurdles in :24.8 and broad jump, at 22-8 ½.
5/10/30
16TH STATE MEET AT CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY
San Diego won the day’s last event and earned a tie with Santa Ana and Sacramento for the team championship with 11 points in the 16th state meet at the University of California campus in Berkeley.
A Hilltoppers quartet of Fernando Ortiz, Charlie Pierson, Jimmy Willson, and Ray Fletcher tied a school record of 1:30 in the 880-yard relay.
San Diego had six points going into the relay, from Ortiz’s second in the 100 and Irvine (Cotton) Warburton’s second in the 440. Santa Ana had seven points and Sacramento nine.
Santa Ana was second in the relay and Sacramento third. Scoring was on a 5-3-2-1 basis. The clutch relay victory elevated the Hilltoppers into the co-championship. They had been outright champions in 1929.
Ortiz won his morning 100 heat in :10 but Alvin Koenig of Huntington Beach took the final in :10.1.
Warburton was timed in :50.3, same as winner Carl Satterfield of L.A. Manual Arts. John Hoobyar of Turlock was third in :50.5.