It might not have been what some of them had hoped for, but the Huskies emerged from the state track championships Saturday, May 31, at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field, with three medals and a lot more experience for three sophomores.
“It was mostly good,” Coach Nathan Whitfield said. “We had a couple of things that didn’t go so well.”
Sweet Home had three placewinners at the end of Saturday’s finals.
The 4×400 boys team of Ryker Burr, Dillan Davis, Kasey Kast and Kolton Wilmarth, which came into Saturday’s contest ranked eighth, finished sixth in a near-school record 3:26.67 – the third-fastest time any Huskies have ever run, after a 49.5-second anchor leg by Wilmarth, to finish in 3:26.67, nearly five seconds faster than their winning OWC district championships time.
Wilmarth battled opponents from Marist and The Dalles the whole way, surging by them in the first 100 and then getting caught on the curve at the 200-meter mark.
“When I reached 100, I thought, you know, maybe I can get at least second or third, you know,” Wilmarth said. “Then they, you know, split off from me.”
But with 100 to go I was thinking, ‘I have to get past them.”
He barely missed catching Marist’s anchor runner, as the Huskies finished nine-hundredths of a second behind the Spartans.
“We were hoping for the school record,” Burr said.
Kast said he was hoping to run a little faster in his split, but “I think getting 3:26 is still awesome.”
“Yeah, it was a great experience.” Burr said. “We’re nationals-bound. We can go to the Nike Outdoor Nationals,” referencing that the Huskies are well under the 3.29 provisional qualifying standard.
Senior Jack Simmons also had a big day, finishing with a 6-foot PR, a throw of 166-7, which gave him a sixth-place finish.
Simmons made the finals in the javelin with a throw of 157-08 on his last attempt in the prelims. That came after two in the low 140s and it was enough to move him solidly into the top eight.
“My warm-up throws felt great,” said Simmons, who hadn’t even expected to be competing in the state meet. “I felt great and confident. And then my first throw, my second throw, I felt a little a little – not very good. And then my coach gave me a couple words, and I felt really good. And then I threw one far enough to get into the finals.”
In the finals, with eight other top placers, he struggled again on his first two throws.
“My next two throws were decent throws, not my best,” Simmons said. “Then again, my coach asked me how I want to finish, and to finish with a PR.”
That was when he unleashed his best throw ever in competition, which briefly put him in fourth place, before two other competitors moved ahead of him in the standings with their final attempts.
Because a girls pole vault competition was occurring nearby, officials kept halting the 4A boys javelin competition and making competitors wait on the runway. Plus, coaches noted, they didn’t have a lot of space to warm up with a shot competition taking place next to the javelin.
“Jack Simmons overcame some crazy stuff in the jav.\elin to PR on that last throw,” Whitfield said.
Simmons, who only started high school track as a junior last year, finishing with a javelin best of 128-5, was just happy to be at Hayward Field.
“I didn’t think I was gonna even make it second at district (to qualify for state),” said Simmons, “So it feels great. I love it. I guess, really great feelings,” he said of his finish.
Davis barely made the final in the 400 on Friday, running 51.48 to finish eighth out of Lane 6 in the prelims, then coming back to finish seventh out of Lane 8 on Saturday, in 51.63.
“I feel like I did good for running in Lane 8, not knowing to really chase until I get to the next corner,” he said. “You kind of run by yourself, no motivation, except for just run your own race. And then once they passed me, I was like, dang, yeah, I better pick it up and then I died.”
Davis, who had run 50.48 the previous Saturday at districts, said he was confident.
“If I had run my district time, I would have gotten second,” he noted.
Miller, running the 3000, was on the really big stage for the first time and “had a rough day,” Whitfield said.
Still, she finished with a four-second PR of 10.48.91 in a very fast field, led by La Grande senior Cecilia Villagomez Edvalson, who finished in 10.07.02, five seconds ahead of teammate Brooke Perry.
La Grande finished second in the girls team race with 69 points, behind Philomath, which won its fourth straight girls title with 80 points, and ahead of Cascade (52) and Crook County (39).
Back on the boys side, sophomore Gavin Tyler got off to a bad start in the shot, rolling his ankle during warmups and fouling three times in the prelims to miss the final.
“He wasn’t able to compete real well there,” Whitfield said.
He said he was pleased with the 4×100 relay team of seniors Wilamarth, Conner Stevens and Chase Cameron, and Davis , a junior, finished 11th in a season’s best 44.30
“Those guys did great,” he said.
Burr, a sophomore, finished 10th in 2:04.62, 2½ seconds off the PR he’d set in the district finals the previous week, and Kast was 11th in 2:06.54, well short of the 2:02.50 he’d run as a junior in the 2024 state meet.
Sophomore Nick Larson didn’t make the finals in either hurdles race and finished 12th in the pole vault on Friday, clearing 11-3¾.
He was 14th in the 110 Hurdles prelims, finishing in 17.67, which was nearly a second off the PR he’d run the week before in the district prelims.
He was 13th in the 300 Hurdles prelims, running 44.14, about half a second off the 43.69 PR he’d run in the district finals.
Sweet Home’s boys finished tied with St. Helens and Hidden Valley for 21st with eight points each.
Crook County edged Henley by four points to score 78 for the boys title. Marist was third (46) and Scappoose tied with The Dalles for fourth. Philomath was 12th (22) and Cascade was 18th (15), just ahead of Newport which was 20th (14).
