Rich Gonzalez
Editor, PrepCalTrack.com
Editor, PrepCalTrack.com
(POCATELLO, Idaho) — By the end of the 2012 outdoor track and field season, Lloyd Sicard was too fast for the competition, coming away with the California state title in the 110-meter high hurdles. So far during the 2013 season, he's just too darn fast for his own good.
Sicard, who has been trying to adjust to the 60-meter high hurdles challenge contested on the indoor track and field circuit, thumped the second hurdle hard (five flights of 39-inch-high barriers are used indoors) to come up short of his goal during Friday's qualifying-round action at the 35th annual Simplot Games meet at Idaho State University.
"I'm frustrated," lamented the Serra High of Gardena senior, competing here as part of the Gardena Core Speed Track Club. "I'm still pretty new to the hurdles and getting used to my speed in between them during my races." Sicard didn't take the bait when asked if duty earlier in the morning on his club team's 4×200 and 4×400 relays (with the team pictured in action above) might have fatigued him, instead blaming it all on lapses in concentration.
"It just comes down to technique," said Sicard, who won his heat by more than half a second. "When I'm alone in front, I relax too much and start dropping my arms… Eventually, I start losing technique and hit one hurdle hard every race. … If I clean it up, I'll finally break eight seconds. I have to."
Sicard remains in search of cracking the eight-second barrier this weekend after a series of outdoor all-comers times in the 60m hurdles hovering in the 8.30s and 8.40s range. His 8.07 on Thursday indoors ranked third overall among 70 competitors, also being among the 18 to advance to Saturday's three-heat finals.
It was another Californian, however — Berkeley High's James Traylor – who surprised by emerging as the fastest qualifier in 8.01. Traylor holds a personal best 14.44 across the 110-meter high hurdles outdoors. Texas prep Tony Brown, the pre-meet favorite, was the second-fastest qualifier in 8.05. All three will square off in the fastest heat of the finals.
That's all for this weekend. Down the road, Sicard and his Cavaliers teammates have bigger fish to fry during the high school season. If successful, Serra could come away with the team title at state after a near-miss last year.
Sicard, who seriously took up the hurdles for the first time last year, became the key cog in Serra's runner-up finish for the team title at the CIF-State Championships in Clovis last June. With his win in the high hurdles and his fifth-place finish in the 300-meter intermediates, Sicard singlehandedly scored 14 of the team's 32 points in the open events, then helped account for eight more team points in relays action.
But when injury to star athlete and state long jump champion A'doree Jackson derailed his effectiveness for the meet-ending 4×400-meter relay, it allowed Khalfani Muhammad-powered Notre Dame of Sherman Oaks to emerge with the crown.
Jackson, who is still on the school's basketball team this week as it readies for its playoff game, is also a star defensive back beng heavily recruited by football coaches. With he and Sicard teaming up yet again, Serra High could be on its way to the CIF title…. one hurdle at a time.
http://www.prepcaltrack.com/2013/02/15/sicard-aiming-to-overcome-new-barrier/
Source: Rich Gonzalez - Editor, PrepCalTrack.com