Kootenai ‘fourpeats’ with its big 5 scorers
BOISE – The first state championship was, well, the first state championship so it was special in its own right.
The second and third were different, too. But the fourth consecutive State 1A track championship secured Saturday by Kootenai will stand out for many years in the mind of coach Shannon LaFountaine.
With an apt mascot – the Warriors – Kootenai needed every point possible from the five athletes who qualified for state as the Warriors edged Region I neighbor Prairie by one point to complete a fourpeat at Boise State University’s Bronco Stadium.
It was the least amount of girls Kootenai has qualified in its run of state titles.
“We had to work hard for it and the kids stepped up,” LaFountaine said. “Five girls and all five girls scored. And all five will be back.”
Kootenai finished with 78 points. But it wasn’t until multi-talented junior Darcy Collins secured her fourth individual state title and 11th out of 11 tries in three years that the Warriors defended their championship.
The Warriors trailed Prairie by a point going into the 200 meters, the third-to-last event of the meet. Collins had to finish ahead of Nicole Nida of Prairie.
Collins broke away from Nida and the pack with 100 meters to go as she finished in 26.27 seconds – .53 ahead of Nida. Collins’ time just missed beating the 1A meet record by four-hundredths of a second. Her time in the prelims (25.93) would have shattered the mark, but meet records are only counted if they occur in the finals.
“She didn’t know we needed her to win going into the 200,” LaFountaine said. “I didn’t need to tell her. We needed her to run her best race. It wouldn’t have mattered if I told her.
“Darcy told the field event kids ‘you guys have done your job. Now it’s my turn.’ “
And Collins more than kept her end of the bargain – even if her competitors didn’t push her at state for a third straight year. Still, she managed to break three state records in her other events.
In her lone field event, the high jump on Thursday, Collins vaulted 5 feet, 2¼ inches. On Saturday, she won the 100 hurdles in 15.40, well ahead of second (17.03) and easily eclipsing the state record (16.34). In the 300 hurdles, Collins zipped to 45.57, finishing more than four seconds ahead of the runner-up and breaking the state mark she had set the year before (47.06).
“I felt really good,” Collins said about the records in the hurdles. “My goal was to get the records.”
“She built a foundation for us to run off,” LaFountaine said. “She’s so competitive; she’s always pushing herself even when the competition doesn’t.”
Collins was the lone Warrior to compete Saturday. The others were involved in field events that concluded Friday.
Junior Jordan Kincheloe and sophomore Stephanie Blackburn finished one-two in the pole vault that went unreported. She vaulted a personal best 9-3, breaking the school record of 9-1 established by her sister, Leah.
“The team was looking for us to get some points,” Kincheloe said. “The pressure was kind of on.”
In another late event Friday, Tony Kraack of Kootenai made it a clean sweep for the Warriors in the pole vault as he captured a state title with a jump of 12-6.
“I had no mistakes early which was a plus,” Kraack said. “Misses are your enemy. Coming in I was ranked No. 1. It’s tremendous to cap off my senior year and go out with a bang.”
Raft River’s boys cruised to a second straight state title and its sixth in the last nine years.
Other medal winners Saturday were: Clark Fork’s boys of Brian Young, Nate McChesnie, Clayton Hewitt and Jeremy Belville combined to finish second in the 800 (1:36.61) and 1,600 (3:36.58) relays; Young took fifth in the 300 hurdles (42.56); Adam White of Kootenai, fifth in the 400 (53.81); Belville took fifth in the 800 (2:04.60); Randy Scales of Mullan, fifth in the 100 (11.48); Katlyn Valerio of Mullan, fifth in the 200 (27.38); and Heidi Ronningen of Coeur d’Alene Charter, fifth in the 400 (1:03.11).