NC leads the way
PASCO – Gold was the goal from the beginning for David Butler and the North Central track team.
Things went quite smoothly for Butler, other than the normal aches and pains of a long season, and on Saturday he achieved all of his goals in winning the State 3A 110-meter hurdles on John Crawford Track.
It wasn’t quite smooth sailing for the Indians, but when the dust settled at the end of StarTrack XXVI they were on the infield at Edgar Brown Stadium celebrating the team championship.
“Coach (Kelly) Walters pretty much told us straight up we had the talent to win state,” junior Spencer Wordell said after running the leadoff leg for the third-place 1,600 relay.
“We were second last year and most of the guys were back,” added anchor Leon Dean.
NC scored 51 points to beat Union, a first-year school near Vancouver, by seven. West Seattle was third with 35. Last year NC had 32 points, three behind Everett.
“We didn’t have any letdowns,” Walters said. “Everybody may not have done exactly what they wanted, but nobody gave up. They kept competing.”
Butler was the big scorer, finishing second in the 300 hurdles, and Dean was fourth in the 800 and 1,600 in addition to anchoring the relay.
The other 3A champions out of the Greater Spokane League were East Valley seniors, Lori Bourgous in the 100 hurdles and Case Parker in the 400.
Eastmont won the girls title with 51 points, two more than Issaquah and six more than Kamiakin. Mt. Spokane was sixth with 34.
Boys
Butler got the day off to a blazing start, running the 110 hurdles in a state-best and school-record 14.22 seconds.
“I’m extremely pleased,” he said. “I had three personal goals – go undefeated, break 14 seconds and win state. I accomplished all three.”
He was referring to hand held time, which clocked him at 13.9 seconds.
His second in the 300 hurdles, more than a second behind the winner, may be Butler’s most impressive accomplishment, considering he only ran the race once during the season to qualify for districts. Then he went out and won district and regional and set another school record with a 39.07 clocking in the preliminaries.
“I think the 300s could be my event,” he said. “I didn’t know until districts I was going to do them. If I had been doing them all year …”
Parker also had a pretty special year, lowering his school record to 48.62 on Friday and holding off Rainier Beach sophomore Michael Berry in the final, winning in 48.65.
“I could hear (Berry), but I couldn’t see him,” Parker said. “I went out hard like I usually do and sprinted the whole way.”
NC scored all of its points on the track and scored in 8 of 10 events. Distance runner Andrew Kimple added a fifth in the 1,600 to his second in the 3,200. Wordell was seventh in the 400 and Jamie McCain was sixth in the 300 hurdles, in addition to their leg on the final relay.
“We’ve never won a team title in track and the school’s been around 100 years,” Dean said.
The NC girls won state in 2006 and the boys cross country team has won the last two state titles.
Girls
Bourgous has charged through the last month and was dominant at state, easily winning her heat with a school record and lowering that to 14.78 in the finals.
“This morning I was all shakes and quakes,” she said. “It was a tight pack going in. I wanted to keep my (late-season) momentum.”
She was slow coming around because of an injury and a trip and didn’t think she was going to duplicate her time or sixth-place finish of a year ago.
EV senior Morgan Dunning got to find out what life was like as a specialist and came away with mixed feelings after placing second in the pole vault with a personal record of 11 feet, 3 inches and just missing at 11-6.
“It was easier not running around to everything,” she said. “I missed doing the long and triple jumps, but it was nice to focus on the pole vault. … I was pretty confident. Practice went well this week. I just had to have confidence in myself. I was disappointed – my goal was 11-6, but when you PR at state you can’t be upset.”
Mt. Spokane’s Courtney Zalud finished second behind Micheal Paulson of Auburn in the 1,600. Her time of 5:06.08 was almost a 4-second PR and ahead of prerace favorite Sophie Curl of Squalicum.
“I just wanted to stay with them,” said Zalud, who took the pace in the third lap until the last 200 meters. “I felt good. I had been on the outside most of the race and I wanted to be on the inside. I thought they were just going to lose me. At 50 meters I just thought, whatever, I can do this.”
The 800 was an afterthought after dropping her school record to 2:16.43 on Friday.
“I’m happy with what I did in the mile,” she said. “I had a PR in the 800 last night. That’s what I wanted to do. I don’t get a chance to run (both races) fresh very often.”