Dix’s Rallies Lead to a Record Season

IRVINE — It was an impossible task.

Woodbridge sprinter Jackie Dix grabbed the baton from Janelle Loudat on the last leg of the girls’ 400-meter relay at the state track and field finals last Saturday and realized the Warriors were in last place in a nine-team race.

In what would turn out to be a national record-setting performance, the relay team of Playa del Rey St. Bernard had opened a sizable lead over second-place Long Beach Poly and the rest of the field at Sacramento City College, en route to a 44.70 clocking.

About all Dix could do was turn on the afterburners and hope.

And that she did. In characteristic form, Dix passed the runner from San Jose Valley Christian and caught her opponent from Alameda Encinal at the wire to tie for seventh place in a respectable time of 47.61.

Dix, The Times Orange County girls’ track and field athlete of the year, is used to running from behind.

In fact, in all four of her first-place finishes at the Southern Section Division II finals at Cerritos College last month, Dix came from behind, most notably in the 100 meters, where she outdueled favorite Nicole Hoxie of Riverside J.W. North to win in a wind-aided 11.85 seconds.

“Just about all of her big wins have come from behind,” Woodbridge Coach George Varvas said.

Dix called her season “a dream,” and said she never expected to do so well.

Since running the 100 meters in 13.2 as a freshman, Dix, a senior, steadily shaved time off her marks. Then, at the Division II qualifying meet this season, she ran 11.99, a county record. Still, it was another in a long line of impressive efforts. At the division final she also won the 200 meters, as well as running anchor legs on the Warriors’ 400 and 1,600-meter relay teams.

Woodbridge finished second overall in the team standings behind North in the Division II finals.

“Jackie has made steady progress from where she started as a freshman,” Varvas said. “She has been able to understand track and became a real, real good student, form-wise and workout-wise, to reach the level she is at.”

Dix, who plans to run cross-country and track at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, had never made it to the state finals before this year.

“Jackie is not much of a lover of the nervousness aspect of competition,” Varvas said. “When she first got involved in track, she would get very scared. But she’s to the point now that she has been able to handle that and she has gotten used to running down people.”