Lagrimanta, Poston defend 3A crowns

BOISE – The road to repeat state titles started off much slower than Frank Lagrimanta desired Friday morning.

It was never in doubt that the Timberlake High senior would defend his 3A state title in the 3,200 meters. The question was, how fast would he run?

Not fast enough in his mind. Lagrimanta toured the Ed Jacoby Track at Boise State University in 9 minutes, 47.68 seconds – 9 seconds slower than his time at district and 4 seconds slower than his state-winning time a year ago.

Never mind the fact Lagrimanta won by more than 13 seconds.

“I did horrible,” Lagrimanta said. “I let the heat get into my head. I took off slow and I couldn’t get my speed up.”

He then headed back to the motel to take a nap before returning in the afternoon to anchor the Tigers’ winning medley relay.

“I’m going to regret that for a while,” Lagrimanta said about the 3,200. “You can’t help it if it gets into your head. I wanted to run in the low 9:30s because I knew it was my last high school 3,200. I lost sleep over it and my stomach’s been upset just from nervousness. I knew something was wrong right away and I tried speeding up. But I couldn’t.”

Lagrimanta has signed to run at Montana State University. He’s looking forward to his final 1,600 on Saturday.

“Generally when I have one bad race I come back and do well,” he said. “I’m going to run so aggressively. I’m not going to let anything stand in the way. No obstacles.”

About six hours later, Lagrimanta was back on the track, this time running scared because Weiser closed hard in the final lap of the medley. The Tigers won in a time of 3:39.58 and Weiser finished .27 behind.

Lagrimanta teamed with Casey Denton, Josh Malloy and Josh Goodman, who opened a big lead during his 200-meter stretch.

“I just ran hard,” Goodman said.

Denton summed up why the relay won.

“Frank’s a stud,” Denton said. “It’s a fact of life.”

Timberlake posted 38.5 points through eight events and trails leader Homedale (41) going into the balance of running finals this morning.

Bonners Ferry’s girls will wake up this morning leading the chase for the team title. The Badgers have Kaitie Poston, Samantha Hiatt and Camille Robertson to thank for it.

Poston capped her stellar career with her third state title in the discus, winning with a throw of 143 feet, 8 inches. About an hour later, Hiatt and Robertson finished 1-2 in the pole vault with jumps of 10-0 and 9-6, respectively.

Poston took a cautious approach to the discus – the event, as a sophomore, she didn’t win because she scratched all three of her throws in prelims. So she scaled her first throw and the toss of 117 would have won.

She unhitched things in the finals. She threw 139-3, 143-8 and 141-6.

Still, she was dissatisfied with the distance. She wanted to break the overall classification record (154-4).

“My mind was on track, but it wasn’t as much as it should have been with my school work and stuff because I was focusing more on that because that’s what is going to get me to college,” Poston said.

Poston’s throws coach, Tom Reifsnyder, said people should appreciate what Poston accomplished.

“She’s quite an athlete,” Reifsnyder said. “She deserves the recognition for quite a career. Throwing hasn’t been her main focus this spring. I hope people don’t look at her throws and think she’s been less than fully successful. Academics have been her focus this spring.”

The Priest River girls captured gold in medley, breaking their school record in a time of 1:52.91. Junior Lacy Hopkins anchored and teamed with Sabrina Johnson, Keisha Miller and Tabitha Clark – all first-time track participants.

Clark ran a superb 200 leg, and she was especially motivated after she false-started in her 200 prelim.

Other 3A athletes winning medals were: Adam Furlin of Kellogg, who won the shot put on Thursday, took second in the discus (140-11); John Macklin of Timberlake took sixth in the pole vault (12-0); Melody Braden of Bonners Ferry took sixth in the 3,200 (12:15.21); Sara Campbell of Kellogg took fourth in the discus (106-2); and Katie Dumont of Kellogg took fourth in the pole vault (9-0).

“In the 1A meet, medal winners included: Tom Norris of Wallace took third in the triple jump (40-11¾) and sixth in the long jump (19-3); Nick Caron of Wallace took fifth in the triple jump (40-2½); Sabrina Ewing of Coeur d’Alene Charter took third in the triple jump (33-7¾) and sixth in the long jump (15-7¾); Alyssa Kimm of CCA took fifth in the 3,200 (13:05.57); Rian Miller of Lakeside took fourth in the shot (33-4); Stephanie Blackburn of Kootenai was second in the pole vault (8-3); and Cody Parker of Kootenai tied for fifth in the pole vault (11-0).