Cronrath paces Tigers; Broncos win

Saturday’s final day of the State 2B/1B track and field championships didn’t start out all that well for Matt Cronrath.

“I was blowing chunks earlier this morning,” said the senior standout from Odessa, who blamed his premeet heaves on some bad hash browns he ate for breakfast. “I really didn’t know how I was going to react.”

But like the person who eats a live toad for breakfast each morning just to make sure his day doesn’t get any worse, Cronrath made sure his got better – much better, in fact. Cronrath won the 800-meter run and anchored Odessa’s 4x400 meter relay to victory as the Tigers rolled up 99 points to blow away the rest of the field at Eastern Washington University and successfully defend the 2B boys title they won last spring.

“It’s incredible,” Cronrath said of the team championship he helped secure with a win in the 1,600 meters on Friday. “It’s a great way to top off a really good season for myself and the team. We just needed to come out today and do what we needed to do – and we did.”

The Tigers’ win in the 4x400, the last event of the day, punctuated a dominant performance that saw them finish 20 points ahead of runner-up Lopez Island.

Lind-Ritzville used its remarkable depth to win the 1B boys title. Trout Lake-Glenwood claimed the 1B girls championship and Tacoma Baptist topped the 2B girls field.

2B: Lind-Ritzville’s boys rode the momentum from Friday’s first-day performance that produced 31 points to a relatively easy 16-point win over runner-up Riverside Christian. The Broncos won only one event – the 4x400 relay – on Saturday, but used a surprise second-place finish by the same 4x400 quartet of Jordan Bilodeaux, Cory Whitmore, Nolan Miller and Alex Pfeifer in the 4x100 to help distance themselves from the 2B field.

In addition, Pfeifer added points by finishing second in the 400 and sixth in the 800, and Bilodeaux took third in the 110 hurdles.

“We really had some kids step up and give us great performances,” said L-R coach Randy Heidenreich, whose Broncos set school records in the 400 and 4x400 and 4x100 relays after finishing in a disappointing tie for second place in last year’s state meet. “Last year we were in the hunt, but our best (individual) placing was fourth, and we knew we had to get some firsts and seconds this year, which is what we did.

“Our kids felt like we had something to prove after last year and just competed really well.”

Assistant coach Dwight Pflugrath added, “In a nutshell, we were just sick and tired of bringing home track trophies that didn’t have a ‘1’ on them.”

Tacoma Baptist sophomore Maurice McNeal turned in the best individual performance among 2B boys competitors by winning the 100, 200 and 400.

Tacoma Baptist also had the top performer among the 2B girls in University of Washington-bound senior Amber Finley, who won all three sprints and anchored the Crusaders’ 4x400 relay to a second-place finish that secured the team title by three points over Northwest Christian (Lacey).

Tekoa-Oakesdale/Rosalia’s Ashley Stabl also had a big day, winning both hurdles events and finishing second in the 200.

1B: Cronrath’s final-day heroics, which included a late surge in the 800 to overtake Klickitat’s Herschel Sanchey, gave Odessa the title it was expecting.

“On paper, it looked good for us,” Cronrath said. “But you never know what’s going to happen in a state meet. We had some things go the wrong way, but we had some lucky moments, too.”

Cronrath added it helped to have Sanchey in front of him down the stretch of the 800.

“It was motivational,” he said, “because you see your main competitor right in front of you, and you know exactly what you have to do.”

Sanchey, who is also a senior, shook off the loss to Cronrath in the 800 by coming back to win the 3,200 for the fourth straight time, with his first two titles coming before the B schools split into two divisions last year. He needed a courageous kick down the stretch to hold off Cronrath’s teammate, Scott Strang.

“That right there simulates what a human being does when he gets chased by a bear,” said Sanchey, who ran a 9:44.66 to beat Strang by almost 2 seconds. “He (Strang) scared me big time, and at one point in the race I was going, ‘No, no, no, noooo,’ repeatedly, because I did not want to get kicked by Odessa again.

“I didn’t want to lose, but I told him I would have shaken his hand and put a big smile on if I had. But I didn’t have to.”

The 1B girls team race was a romp, with Trout Lake-Glenwood rolling up 106 points to runner-up North Sound Christian’s 65. Northport senior Kaprina Goodwin turned in one of the top individual performance of the day by winning the 100 and 300 hurdles, along with the long jump.

Those three wins, coupled with Friday’s victory in the triple jump, gave Goodwin four gold medals – in the same four events – for the second year in a row.

“Everything just clicked again today,” said the Mustangs’ senior star, who broke her meet records on Friday in both the 100 (15.40) and 300 (46.00), but missed her long jump meet record of 17 feet by 2 ¾ inches while jumping directly into a troubling wind.

“I don’t think the win was really that big a factor (in the long jump). It was more about coming off the 300 hurdles,” Goodwin said.

“I was a little bit tired.”

Goodwin said she cried after the long jump competition.

“I was happy enough with my mark,” she explained, “but I realized everything was over.”