Switch From Softball To Track Pays Off For Dp Athlete

Deer Park’s Jaime Stone gave up softball this year. Her reward was a state championship.

After three years at shortstop for the school’s softball team, Stone switched to track and field. At the State A track meet in Cheney, she finished third at 3,200 meters and capped a four-year, four-sport career with a state championship 1,600 meter run.

“I thought I had a better chance at the 3,200,” said Stone. “When I got up there with the leaders (of the 1,600), I was feeling pretty good. It was the last race I’d ever run for Deer Park and I thought, ‘Why not?”’

She started sprinting with 200 meters to go and no one contested her. Stone’s 5:16.18 time won by nearly three seconds.

It wasn’t that this softball player-turned-track runner was a complete distance unknown. For four years she finished among the top cross country runners in state, including this year’s third-place effort.

Stone, however, had played softball in the summers with a group of girls since sixth grade and they are good friends.

“I did it mainly as a responsibility towards them,” she said. “(Plus) it was something I really enjoyed. I really wanted to play this year, too.”

The lure of a college scholarship and urgings of her distance coach, Cheryl Yoke, convinced Stone to give track a one-year try.

It paid off big, although learning about pace took time.

“At the beginning I ran like it was a 3-mile race in cross country,” said Stone. “I actually wrote times on my hand in one meet and tried to hit them because I didn’t know how to pace myself.”

The athlete, who also ran relays and even put the shot during the track season, was a quick study. Her 11:47 3,200 and 5:26 1,600 times ranked her fourth in state at both.

At the state meet, she lowered her times even further, although 3,200 champion Cassie Sloan from Burbank, forced the pace early to break the field.

“She went out so hard and fast, no one stayed with her,” said Stone.

That wasn’t the case in the 1,600 where Stone followed her coach’s advice to stay with the leaders and if she was feeling good to pass people.

Her reaction to the state title?

“All I could thing of was finally, finally after all this,” said Stone. “After placing in the top seven in cross country for four years, I finally won one of them. I was astonished when I crossed the line.”

If truth were known, basketball is Stone’s favorite sport. A four-year varsity player, she was the Northeast A League’s fourth-leading scorer this year with an 11.6 average. That’s off from last year’s 13-plus point average.

“It’s the one I enjoy the most, if I had to pick,” she said.

Running, however, is her future, although she admitted to moments of regret that she didn’t continue playing softball this spring.

“My friends said they missed me and wanted me back,” said Stone. “Right now there’s no way.”

Instead, she will continue with track and cross country on academic scholarships to the University of Idaho. Stone, who has a 3.97 grade point average, intends to major in forestry.

“I can’t believe I haven’t heard from the college at all,” said Stone, after her state triumphs. “I don’t know if they know I won.”

It’s true that her distance career occurred in the shadows of higher-profile athletes from the area’s larger schools.

The Vandals may have unwittingly stumbled onto something.

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