Sarah Cummings

Bill Sumner has seen fire, and he's seen rain. But the Corona del Mar High track and field coach could only think of three girls whose drive and passion matched Sarah Cummings, and Sumner estimated 10,000 student athletes have run under his vigilance and guidance since he began coaching. "Sarah takes it to another level. She's a special kid," Sumner said of the school's Female Athlete of the Year. "There are very few kids that come through our program that you have to get to cut back a little bit. You see them once about every 10 years.

Four girls from the Corona del Mar High track and field team won the national title in the 4x1,600 meter relay on Friday. Hilary May, Sarah Cummings, Allison Damon and Shelby Buckley completed the 4x1,600 meters in 20 minutes and 23 seconds at the Nike Outdoor National Meet in Greensboro, N.C. They were hoping to break the record of 19:56, but there was no one on the track to push them. Buckley finished the race nearly 150 meters ahead of the next girl, said CdM track coach Bill Sumner.

Corona del Mar High senior Sarah Cummings and junior Shelby Buckley have seemingly done it all this year. The Sea Kings duo helped Corona del Mar High win its third consecutive CIF Southern Section Division III title, before defending their CIF State title in Fresno on Nov. 25. Today, at Balboa Park in San Diego, they're going national. By finishing in the top 10 individually at the Nike Team Nationals last weekend in Portland, Ore., Buckley and Cummings qualified for today's 28th annual Foot Locker Cross Country National Championships.

CdM girls cross countryAnnie St. Geme, Cummings, Damon and Buckley all cross the tape together in win over Laguna.NEWPORT BEACH -- Although it was race day for the Corona del Mar High girls cross country team, it was business as usual, said CdM Coach Bill Sumner. The Sea Kings (5-0) romped over Laguna Beach Wednesday at Bonita Creek Park, 15-50, as the top four overall finishers -- Annie St. Geme, Sarah Cummings, Allison Damon and Shelby Buckley -- each crossed the line at 19:05.

Corona del Mar High's baseball, boys' volleyball and girls' water polo teams are winners of the CIF Southern Section Academic Awards after posting the highest cumulative grade-point average in college preparatory courses in the first semester of the 2006-07 school year in their respective sports. The girls' water polo team, with a 3.82 GPA, boasted the highest GPA out of three CdM teams, followed by boys' volleyball (3.62) and baseball (3.61). The Sea Kings' teams, which were competing with schools with enrollments below 1,500 students, will be honored in a pregame ceremony before the Detroit Tigers play the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim at Angels Stadium on April 23. Each team will receive a banner as well as certificates for each player.

Every track and field season for the past 41 years the Arcadia Invitational has served as a chance for the best to test themselves against each other at the season's halfway point. Corona del Mar High is bringing members of its boys and girls teams and Newport Harbor has athletes from its girls squad. Newport Harbor seniors Jessica Robson and Allison Stokke have posted some of the best marks in California this season in their respective events. Robson will compete in the high jump, her mark of 5-foot-8 tied with four others for the best in the state.

Corona del Mar High junior Annie St. Geme posted the fastest qualifying time Friday to advance to the final of the girls 1,600 meters at the CIF State track and field championships at Sacramento City College. Sage Hill junior Zach Chandy qualified eighth in the boys 200 in 21.63 and ninth in the 400 in 48.50 Friday, while Newport Harbor junior Bo Taylor qualified ninth in the boys shot put (56 feet, 5 1/2 inches). Newport Harbor junior Whitney Blue will compete in tonight's girls 3,200 final, for which there were no preliminaries.

SACRAMENTO — With the sun shining on a packed track, Corona del Mar High's Shelby Buckley had to fight the rest of the girls' 1,600 meters field as well as the elements at the CIF State Championships. Buckley, the CIF Southern Section Masters champion, finished third in the finals to medal at the state meet Saturday at Hughes Stadium in Sacramento in front of a crowd of 11,171. "It was dry out there, I had to keep licking my lips," said Buckley, who came in at 4 minutes, 45.39 seconds.

Four members of the CIF Southern Section Division III co-champion Corona del Mar High girls track and field team grabbed yet another title Saturday, winning the distance medley relay at the Nike Outdoor nationals in Greensboro, N.C. The quartet of sophomore Sarah Cummings, senior Melissa Swigert, freshman Allison Damon and 1,600-meter state champion Annie St. Geme, a junior, clocked 11 minutes, 42.07 seconds, the fifth-fastest...

On the girls' cross country team at Corona del Mar High, there is never much time to savor the previous season's success. The focus is always on what is ahead and how to improve on the past. Corona del Mar won its fourth state championship last season and finished sixth at the national championships. The Sea Kings lost one of its best runners ever in Annie St. Geme, but Coach Bill Sumner wants to improve. "It's important that we do or we'll go backward," said Sumner, who is entering his 23rd year.

Bill Sumner has seen fire, and he's seen rain. But the Corona del Mar High track and field coach could only think of three girls whose drive and passion matched Sarah Cummings, and Sumner estimated 10,000 student athletes have run under his vigilance and guidance since he began coaching. "Sarah takes it to another level. She's a special kid," Sumner said of the school's Female Athlete of the Year. "There are very few kids that come through our program that you have to get to cut back a little bit. You see them once about every 10 years.

Four girls from the Corona del Mar High track and field team won the national title in the 4x1,600 meter relay on Friday. Hilary May, Sarah Cummings, Allison Damon and Shelby Buckley completed the 4x1,600 meters in 20 minutes and 23 seconds at the Nike Outdoor National Meet in Greensboro, N.C. They were hoping to break the record of 19:56, but there was no one on the track to push them. Buckley finished the race nearly 150 meters ahead of the next girl, said CdM track coach Bill Sumner.

SACRAMENTO — With the sun shining on a packed track, Corona del Mar High's Shelby Buckley had to fight the rest of the girls' 1,600 meters field as well as the elements at the CIF State Championships. Buckley, the CIF Southern Section Masters champion, finished third in the finals to medal at the state meet Saturday at Hughes Stadium in Sacramento in front of a crowd of 11,171. "It was dry out there, I had to keep licking my lips," said Buckley, who came in at 4 minutes, 45.39 seconds.

CORONA DEL MAR — Starting today, Corona del Mar High girls' track team members Sarah Cummings, Hilary May, Shelby Buckley and Allison Damon will compete at the CIF State Track and Field Championships in Sacramento. "There's more where that came from" seemed to be the theme of Thursday's Coastal Athletic League junior high track finals at CdM, at least on the girls' side. CdM won the overall girls' title, with the Sea Kings' total of 265 points easily topping defending champion Dwyer's tally of 158. The CdM girls also won the eighth-grade and C (athletes under 5-foot-4)

If you're watching her run at a track meet, there are two ways to pick out Sarah Cummings: No. 1: If she's not first, she'll be at the front of the pack. No. 2: It's impossible to miss the mop of curly bright red hair pulled into a ponytail, especially when she's surrounded by her three blonde teammates. Cummings, a Princeton-bound senior at Corona del Mar High, will be running the 3,200 meters event at the CIF Southern Section Masters Meet this Friday at Cerritos College.

There have been several stories written about Bill Sumner in The Daily Pilot , but there's one that he would probably rather not have published. It's not his style to talk about himself. Talk about his teams and his athletes? Yeah, he'll do that. But to talk about that one early morning back in mid-December, he would rather leave that story untold. But there's too much drama there, too much symbolism of a man who has been a special coach at Corona del Mar High. On that early morning, Sumner lay alone, flat on his face, helpless in despair because of a kidney stone that enveloped the 59-year-old man in extreme pain.

NORWALK— Shelby Buckley is not slow. Certainly not on a track, and not in the academic sense either. Buckley, who qualified for the CIF Southern Section Masters meet and helped Corona del Mar win its third straight CIF title, is a bit of an anomaly these days. Newspapers such as the New York Times have documented the increased pressure that has been put on the shoulders of modern high school girls to do it all: earn a four-point-something grade point average, be the best in a sport or activity, even have a perfect relationship, if they can find the time to have one at all. And when that's all over, there's still the matter of getting into a top-tier institution as the Ivy Leagues are mailing more and more rejection letters.

Since they'd already won the Pacific Coast League championship seven straight times, the Corona del Mar girls' track team went after a new benchmark. For the first time in United States history — according to CdM coach Bill Sumner — four girls from one team ran the 1,600 meter event in less than five minutes, all on the same night. "It wasn't anything we planned, it just happened," Sumner said of Shelby Buckley (4:58.6), Alison Damon (4:58.7), Sarah Cummings (4:59.

FOR THE RECORD Newport Harbor High senior Laura Clayton finished third in the triple jump with a mark of 37 feet, one-quarter inch at the Orange County Championships Saturday. Her result was omitted in a story that appeared in Sunday's edition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . MISSION VIEJO ? The key to the Orange County Track and Field Championships was hidden in Corona del Mar High Coach Bill Sumner's back pocket. Sumner opened the slip of paper and reviewed his scribblings.