By CARRIE VAN BUREN
For The Beachcomber
The West Central District III Championships meet at North Mason High School served up equal helpings of exultation and frustration for the eight Pirate track and field athletes who tested their skills in 11 different events there last Friday and Saturday. The top two finalists in each event move on to compete in the WIAA State Championship meets this weekend.
Friday’s Pirate action on the track began with tri-district veteran Annika Hille propelling herself to a second-place finish and personal record (PR) of 12.63 seconds in the girls’ 100-meter dash. Next, Gerry Gerrior finished his successful freshman season in the sprint lanes by taking fifth place in the boys’ 100-meter race in 11.97 seconds. Sophomore Aria Mildon continued her trend of ever-faster times in the 3,200-meter event as she finished in seventh place and posted her first sub-13-minute finish in that race to date. The final running event for the Pirate girls that day featured Hille, Emily Browne, Annie Muller and Eva Anderson in the 4×100 meter relay, which despite a series of fine handoffs of the baton, left them with a third-place finish and just out of contention for a place at State.
The girls’ long jump event — or rather the short jump event — featured a series of less-than-stellar leaps for all the competitors involved, but ultimately gave Hille another coveted second-place finish with a jump of 14-10 1/3. Annie Muller completed her season of jumping in fifth place with a distance of 14-4 1/4.
Day two of competition started with Pirate field events and a successful day on the runway for Emily Browne, who captured first place and took the top of the podium as district champion in the girls’ triple jump event with a leap of 31-7. Anna Ryckman also saw success with a jump of 30-1, to put her in fourth place. Teammate Kat Andrus, who had great success in the triple jump event through much of the season, was out of both the running and the leaping with a leg injury. Next door in the throwing arena, Natalie VanDevanter demonstrated her recent gains in technique and control, as well as a PR throw of 86-1 in the girls’ discus. She took fifth place in that event.
Next, kudos went to Eva Anderson, who shaved a whopping 10 seconds off of her best time in the 800-meter event, putting her pedal to the metal around the final turn in the two-lap race to pass two opponents and close in on second place. Later, Anderson ran a solid 1,600-meter race, taking seventh place. In the boys’ 200-meter dash, Gerry Gerrior was a bit too eager to move off the blocks and experienced the agony of a false start and the inevitable disqualification from the race for the second round. Minutes later, a determined Hille kept her cool and bolted to her third second-place finish for the meet in the girls’ 200-meter race in 26.01 seconds.
Fellow islander and track veteran Abi Kim continued her reign over several events as she won the district championship in the 100-meters, 200-meters and long jump. Kim thrilled the crowd with her prowess and her PR in the 200 as she glided to first place in 24.81 seconds — a full second faster than any other girls’ 200-meter sprinter in state 1A competition. In the final event of the meet, Kim anchored her Seattle Christian 4×400 meter relay team to a second-place finish and a berth at State.
Island racer Graham Peet, a senior at The Northwest School, has also qualified in his district to compete in the 1,600-meter and 3,200-meter events at State.
Three Pirates are now preparing for the trek across the state to Cheney, led by coaches Marcella Murphy and Kevin Ross: Hille in the 100-meter, 200-meter and long jump events, Anderson in the 800-meter race and Browne in the triple jump event. Head Coach Murphy, who has accepted a teaching position at Mount Si High School next fall noted her pride in those who advanced.
“First-year track athlete Eva Anderson amazed her coaches and fellow competitors with a huge PR in the 800 meters, senior Emily Browne, a first-year triple jumper, won the triple jump by a foot, and junior Annika Hille is making her third consecutive appearance at State this year. I am eager to watch these three athletes compete in Cheney this weekend and am so proud of all they have accomplished. It will be a great end to my coaching career here at Vashon,” she said.
The state meet includes competition among 1A, 2B and 1B high schools and is held at Eastern Washington University. Competition commences Thursday morning and will close on Saturday evening.
— Carrie Van Buren in the mother of a Pirate track athlete.
