For a kid named Dashiell, you know there has to be a little mystery to his story. And it's still being written.

Eighteen years ago, Jerry and Jennifer Oliver of Castro Valley were searching for a good name for their second son, one that would pair well with older son Chase. Mom heard the name "Daschle Butler, Berkeley police chief" on the radio while dad read about the same man in the newspaper.

When it came time to name their child, they opted for an alternate spelling, going with Dashiell, as in Hammett.

So Dashiell it was, Dash for short. As it turned out, young Dash had more than a little speed working for him. Now a senior at Castro Valley High School, Dash Oliver is, yes, a sprinter, a good one at that.

On Saturday at the Stanford Invitational, Oliver raced down Cobb Track in 10.63 seconds to win the high school boys 100 meters. It's a personal best for Oliver and also a state-leading time. Finishing second in 10.72 was George Atkinson of Granada High, son of the former Oakland Raider of the same name.

Dash, indeed.

"It's my real name. It's who I am," he said.

Jerry Oliver said of his son, "He did a lot of sports and very quickly we saw he had a lot of speed. He's always had very good speed, and this year it's coming along well."

There's more to Dash Oliver's story than his name, as it turns out. He's running with a ligament from a cadaver in his right knee. In July, Oliver tore his right anterior cruciate ligament in a football camp. The knee was reconstructed at Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco with a ligament from a cadaver.

"At first it bothered me," Oliver said of having a piece of a dead person in his body, "but now I feel it's my own. When I'm on the track, I never think about it."

Oliver had received a number of letters from colleges regarding his football ability as a defensive back but the interest waned as soon as he hurt his knee. He is determined to show those colleges they were premature in writing him off.

"They're missing out on something," he said. "I'm not going to let something like that keep me down."

Oliver improved his best time in the 100 a full three-tenths of a second since last year, from 10.93 to 10.63.

In a meet featuring high school, junior college, college and postcollegiate athletes, the best race was the men's 4x400 relay. Stanford looked to be the winner, but anchorman Durell Coleman pulled up with a leg injury about 80 meters before the finish, leaving Cal and American River to battle for the win.

Anchors Jake Hanson of Cal and Kianti Gix of American River ran stride-for-stride to the finish and not much separated them at the end, a mere hundredth of a second. Hanson and Cal got the win in 3 minutes, 11.88 seconds. Gix and American River were a tick behind in 3:11.89.

Gix ran his anchor in 46.0 while Hanson timed 46.8.

Olympic silver medalist Sheena Tosta opened her outdoor season with a win in the 100-meter hurdles (13.33) and a second-place finish in the 200 meters (23.81). At Beijing last summer, she earned her silver medal in the 400-meter hurdles, so Saturday's meet was a chance for her to get in some speed work.

"It's definitely a working meet," she said. "That's the most races I've run on a weekend in awhile."

Santa Cruz's Maggie Vessey, ranked No. 5 in the U.S. in the women's 800 meters, surged nicely on the second lap and won in 2:04.03.

Vessey ran fifth in the Olympic Trials last year in a personal best 2:02.01. Her goal this year is to make the U.S. team for the World Championships in Berlin in August.

Cal's Josef Ghebray broke the school record in the men's 10,000 by more than 40 seconds with a clocking of 28 minutes, 32.27 seconds.