HIGH SCHOOL TRACK / STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS : Relay Teams’ Woes Put Thousand Oaks Off Course : Qualifying: One quartet eliminated, the other withdraws. Jones wins 100 and 200 heats to help keep Lancers’ hopes alive.

A meet that began with bitter disappointment for the Thousand Oaks High girls’ track and field team ended in mystery on the first day of the state championships at Cerritos College on Friday.

After failing to qualify for the final of the 400-meter relay to start the meet, the Lancers’ team of Wendy Wendelstein, Lisa Gillette, Marion Jones and Heather Hanger withdrew from their qualifying heat of the 1,600 relay near the end of the meet for unknown reasons.

The quartet was seen in the warm-up area next to the track shortly before its heat, but the foursome and Coach Art Green were nowhere to be found afterward.

Art Green’s brother Doni, the coach at Moorpark College, and father Don Sr., a former coach at Cal Lutheran, refused to discuss the reasons for the Lancers’ withdrawal.

“I have no comment,” Doni Green said. “You’re going to have to talk to him.”

Even without the 400- and 1,600-meter relay teams in today’s finals, Thousand Oaks still has a chance to win the girls’ title, although Long Beach Poly appears to be favored over Oakland Bishop O’Dowd and the Lancers after Friday’s preliminaries.

Marion Jones won her heats of the girls’ 100 and 200 with the best one-day double by a high school sprinter, timing 11.24 seconds and 22.71.

Her 100 time was the fastest in the nation this season, the No. 4 performance on the all-time high school list, and an age-16 record, breaking the mark of 11.28 set by Rio Mesa’s Angela Burnham in the 1988 U.S. Olympic trials. The 200 clocking was the No. 3 performance on the all-time list and only .04 seconds shy of the national record that Jones set in the Southern Section 3-A Division preliminaries three weeks ago.

Hanger helped keep Thousand Oaks’ title hopes alive by qualifying for the final of the 300 low hurdles with a second-place time of 45.47 in her heat.

Although Hanger entered the meet as the 10th-ranked entry in her event with a personal best of 44.83, she had the fourth-fastest qualifying time.

“Anything can happen in this meet, and usually does,” Art Green said earlier in the week. That became evident in the meet’s first running event, the girls’ 400 relay, as poor passing relegated the Lancers to a third-place finish in the first heat with a time of 48.56. The team had the 10th-fastest time overall and the top nine relay teams qualified for the final.

Most of the region’s other top performers qualified for today’s finals, including Nikki Shaw of Fillmore and Jeff Wilson of Newbury Park.

Shaw won her heat in 5:07.08.

Shaw’s quest for a state title got easier when Milena Glusac of Fallbrook, who has run 4:52.6, pulled out of the 1,600 to concentrate on the 3,200.

Wilson, who ranks second in the state in the boys’ 1,600 (4:09.75), won his heat in 4:15.92.

Eugene Dreher of Antelope Valley and Cheaza Figueroa of Quartz Hill, the Golden league champions in the boys’ and girls’ long jump, posted region-leading marks.

Dreher and Eric Hunt of Bullard had the longest jumps of the day with identical marks of 23 feet 10 1/2 inches. Figueroa was third in girls’ qualifying with a wind-aided mark of 19-4 1/2, and she also had a non-wind-aided jump of 19-4.

Marcus Stokes of Thacher was a double qualifier in the boys’ 110 high and 300 intermediate hurdles. Stokes timed a wind-aided 14.07 to win his heat in the high hurdles and ran 38.46 to finish second in his heat of the intermediates.

Crystal Brownlee of Westlake and Nada Kawar of Crescenta Valley were the second and fourth qualifiers in the girls’ shotput with marks of 44-3 and 43-5 1/4.