Wildcats girls grab trophy

PASCO – Mt. Spokane took eight girls to the State 4A track meet with seven scoring points – and the one who didn’t finished a heart-breaking ninth in the 3,200 meters despite a personal record by 30 seconds.

That’s why when the points were added up Saturday afternoon at Edgar Brown Stadium the Wildcats had secured the third-place trophy.

The only unhappy Wildcat – briefly – was Jordan Roskelley. She was the only Greater Spokane League champion – clearing a meet-record 12 feet, 3 inches in the pole vault. Although it was well shy of what she wanted to do in the event, she only had to vault once to win.

“It was always my goal to win state and get that record, but after that 13 was my ultimate goal for today,” she said upon reflection.

The Wildcats scored 42 points, 20 behind Skyline and 10 behind Eastmont.

The North Central boys seemed to nickel and dime their way through two days of competition at John Crawford Track. A second-place finish – their highest placing – tallied 32 points to help them finish second, three points behind Everett and three ahead of Camas.

“With duct tape and bailing wire,” was Indians coach Kelly Walters’ explanation. “It was crazy with all the injuries and everything, the kids just competed. We kept picking up points.

“We thought it was possible, but not with the way things happened. They happened to other teams, too, but the kids saw the big picture and kept hanging on.”

Girls

Roskelley deserved to be disappointed with the way she has dominated the pole vault since clearing 12-8 in early April to become Spokane’s best high school female vaulter.

This was the first time in more than a month when she entered a competition with another vaulter having a chance to beat her. But when she easily cleared 11-3 on her first attempt and Dani Weatherbee of Port Angeles missed three times she had the championship.

Roskelley then soared over 11-9 and got the 3A record of 12-3 on her second attempt.

With the running events winding down with the 1,600-meter relays, Roskelley elected to go for 12-9, which would have given her the best height in a state meet.

“Things happen, you can’t really blame it on anything,” she said. “I thought I was going to get it today. At 12-9 I just started to second guess myself. As I said before, you can’t do that. I don’t know why. It’s only an inch more than I normally do.

“I was giving up at the top; I wasn’t trusting myself to do it.”

By the trophy presentation she was beaming with her teammates.

The other second-day points came from sophomores. Courtney Zalud was fourth in the 800 and Rachel Damiano was fifth in the discus.

“We knew Skyline would be tough, they were in every event,” Mt. Spokane coach Annette Pedersen said. “We were hoping to get a trophy. It’s the highest we ever finished. We got fourth once (4A, 2002), and this is the most points we’ve had.

“We knew we probably had a better invitational team than a dual-meet team. We knew we had athletes that could compete at a high level, but we didn’t have depth.

NC’s Mary Graesser got her second medal, a fifth in the 1,600 meters.

It’s also notable that Devon Brooks of Holy Names joined an elite group when she won the 100-meter hurdles for the fourth consecutive year.

Boys

No one had a great day for NC, but the effort was crystallized when sophomore Nick Roark, so banged up he pulled out of the preliminaries of the 1,600 Friday, gamely finished fourth in the 200 late in the day.

“That was all in the stretch,” Walters said. “It was all heart.”

It came after the 400 relay, one of the best in the state, was a disappointing third, more than a half-second slower than it ran a week earlier.

“We were expecting first in the 4x1,” Roark said. “We stayed focused on the trophy and we never gave up on getting one. On that run and every other race, it made the difference.”

Senior Justin Brayton, a first-time state qualifier, ended his season second in the high jump, but at 6-4 was almost 4 inches short of his school-record season best.

“It wasn’t my best day,” he said. “I’ve been wanting first for so long. Still, second is good, but there is that ‘what if’ I had had a better day.”

East Valley had a mixed bag.

Case Parker gave the Knights a second in the 400 and Tim Armstrong was third in the 300 hurdles and both were pleased after individual medals.

But Armstrong was disqualified in the 110 hurdle finals and the 3A state-best 1,600 relay team, though just a half-second off its best, was only fourth.

“They said I didn’t attempt two hurdles,” Armstrong said. “I don’t agree.”