District 8’S Top 8 Fill Field For Next Week’s Regionals

The District 8/Taco Time track meet has become a watered-down affair and not just because of the rain at Spokane Falls Community College Thursday night.

However, just because half of the 16 entrants in each event advance to the Eastern AAA regional meet at SFCC next weekend, not all of the Greater Spokane League entrants coasted through the night.

Mead’s Allison Beatty set a meet record with a 137-foot, 11-inch throw in the javelin, erasing the 131-9 established by Mead’s Jodi Orton in 1990.

“I didn’t throw very well but I’m happy with the record,” said Beatty, who threw a personal record 145-feet three weeks ago. “My whole series was terrible, I was in the 120s. Instead of trying to technique it, I got mad and just threw it.

“It makes so much difference the competition you’re around. I don’t want to say anything but there wasn’t the same kind of competition I’ll be around the next two weeks. Maybe it’s my personality, I need something to get up for. The record was my incentive today.”

Beatty won the javelin by more than 34 feet but the battle behind her was fierce. Thirteen different throwers broke 100 feet. Second place was 113-4 and 13th was 100-11. The difference between eighth and ninth was seven inches.

Half the field events were finished Thursday, the remaining are tonight, beginning with boys triple jump at 4:30. The running finals begin at 6 p.m., through all qualifiers have earned a spot in the regional against Big Nine schools. The regional is at SFCC next Friday and Saturday.

Also coming up big was University junior Syd Perno, who reached her goal of breaking 40-foot in the shot put. Suddenly she is thinking bigger.

“Finally,” she said with a huge grin after her 40-4 gave her the win by almost two feet. “A little birdie told me I have more in me if I get my technique down. I’ll work hard the next two weeks.”

Perno has been on a steady climb in recent weeks with her previous best of 38-10 coming just last Saturday.

“I’m starting to get focused,” she said. “Before I wasn’t focused. Now I know what I want. I want to break the school record (42-3).”

There were two running finals Thursday, the girls 1,600, won by Ferris freshman Miriah McConnaughey in 5:11.75, and the boys 3,200, won by Ferris senior Zach Ventress in 9:20.27.

Five of the eight qualifers in the 3,200 were from Ferris but at the front it wasn’t a race as Ventress stretched out to a big lead early and Mead’s Skiy DeTray and Micah Davis only ran to qualify.

“It wasn’t that good of a time, no one wanted to run,” Ventress said. “We’ve got three weeks until state, we might as well have a race. I guess no one else thought that way. It didn’t matter. I knew what I was going to do, I was going to run I’ll run the mile the same way and see what they want to do.”

The same three will be the favorites in the 1,600 tonight.

“It’s kind of nice to win district, obviously it doesn’t mean much to them,” Ventress said. If they just wanted to hand it to me, fine. When we get in a race they usually want to run. We do our workouts to race.”

GSL softball

The first round of the GSL’s District 8 softball tournament was rained out Thursday. The first-round, loser-out games will be played today at Franklin Park. Rogers will play Gonzaga Prep at 3:45 p.m. and North Central will play Central Valley at 6 p.m.

Today’s winners, qualifiers for next weekend’s regionals, play Monday at Franklin Park for seeding. University will take on one winner at 1 p.m. and Mead will face the other opening-round winner at 3:45 p.m.

GSL tennis

The first round of the District 8/George Gee Pontiac tennis tournament was rained out and will begin today.

Two rounds of boys singles will be at Hart Field and Ferris while doubles action will be at Central Valley.

For the girls, the first two rounds of singles play begin at North Central and Rogers and the doubles matches will be played at Mission Park and Mead. Matches begin at 1:30 p.m.