Egland’s marathon day ends with gold

You don’t earn extra money for working overtime at a high school track meet, but then it’s hard to put a price on the sense of pride you get from finally finishing the job.

Especially when you get it as right as Anandae Egland did during Friday’s opening day of the State 1A track and field championships at Eastern Washington University’s Woodward Field.

Egland, a freshman from Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls) with a strong gymnastics background, survived a spirited challenge from Seattle Academy’s Zoe Mesnik-Greene – and a nearly three-hour break from competition – to capture the girls pole vault title in a jump-off that concluded nearly five hours after the event’s 10 a.m. start.

As she discussed her achievement after the fact, she made it abundantly clear that the gold medal draped around her neck was well worth the wait and extra worry.

“It might have really messed me up, if I had been in the wrong state of mind,” an obviously excited Egland said of the long layoff that allowed the 1B boys to complete their pole vault competition before the 1A girls title was decided. “But I thought, coming in, I could do it.”

What made the wait even more difficult was the fact that Egland thought she had won the event in regulation at 10 feet, 9 inches after Mesnik-Greene, a sophomore who had also cleared 10-9, had missed twice on her first attempt at the opening height. But meet officials determined those misses weighed the same as the Egland’s two misses at higher heights and a jump-off was required.

“I know she was ticked, because she thought she had won,” Egland’s vault coach Paul Huffman said of the jump-off. “But she’s the ultimate competitor, so she came back and got it done.”

The jump-off started at 11-0, a height both finalists had previously missed, and they both missed again on their jump-off attempts. They both made another vault at 10-9 and missed again at 11-0. But after the bar was dropped back down to 10-9, Mesnik-Greene missed and Egland cleared to earn the title.

It was one of only two individual titles claimed by 1A area athletes during the day, with the other coming from Chewelah senior Liz Cobb, who captured the girls long jump with a leap of 17-6¼.

Cobb, who finished seventh last year when teammate Erin Smith won the gold medal with a leap of 17-8, said she felt much more comfortable this time around.

“I felt really good about my chances coming in,” she said, “but I couldn’t let that go to my head, because there were too many other good jumpers to worry about.”

Among the other top efforts by area competitors in finals were second-places finishes by Lakeside’s Austin Stuchell in the boys 1,600-meter run, and Chewelah’s Will Lohman in the boys discus.

Stuchell, a senior, passed three runners in the last lap and posted a 1,600 time of 4 minutes, 25.30 seconds that was more than 5 seconds better than his previous personal best but almost 4 behind the winning time of 4:21.79 turned in by Cashmere senior Seth Pierson.

Pierson’s effort also established a school record and left him marveling at his achievement.

“It was like 10 years old,” he said of the previous school record, “so that was a cool thing to do. At the start, everyone was really sprinting out, so I kind of backed off and decided to try to just hold my spot for a while.”

But after three laps, Stuchell got tired of simply counting the heads in front of him and made his move, outsprinting third-place finisher Quinton Decker, from Port Townsend, to the tape.

“That was a great sprint between me and Quinton at the end,” Stuchell said. “I’ve been in a lot of races this year, and that was the best I’ve had all season. It was all out, giving everything you got. It was a great way to finish.”

Lohman’s runner-up finish in the discus wasn’t nearly as satisfying, however.

The Cougars’ senior weight standout won the event at last year’s state meet with a toss of 153-7 and bettered that effort by 2½ feet. But he still finished second, well behind the winning throw of Naches Valley senior Jake Wilcox, which sailed 164-8.

The 1A/2B/1B meet continues today, with competition in the combined wheelchair discus starting at 9:30 a.m. The final event of the weekend, the 1A boys 1,600 relay starts at 4:40 p.m.