NC champs keep goals on track

The State 3A boys track championship North Central clinched Saturday at Edgar Brown Stadium in Pasco was predicted months before.

“Coach kept encouraging us all year,” junior distance runner Leon Dean said. “He told us if everything went right we had a chance to score 90 to 100 points, so when things went wrong, we still had all those points for a cushion.”

Head coach Kelly Walters said, “We didn’t outline the points. We just said nothing ever goes perfect but we have so much talent on this team, if everybody does what they’re physically capable of, stays healthy and stays academically eligible, we could do some pretty incredible things.”

But with one day left in the season, Walters was worried if NC had enough points.

In the preliminaries of the 200 meters Friday night, Alex Cassis, who had qualified for the 100 finals, pulled up lame.

Walters was concerned about the loss of a potential 10-plus points and how the team would react to an injured teammate.

“I wondered, ‘What do we still have?’ ” Walters said. “I counted the points and we still had the ability to score 50.”

The team reacted well, starting with David Butler’s state championship in the 110-meter hurdles in the first race of the day. His state-best time of 14.22-seconds broke the school record. When the 1,600 relay team came in third, NC had 51 points and the first boys track team championship in the school’s 100-year history.

Spencer Wordell ran leadoff on the relay and placed seventh in the 400; Dean placed fifth in the 800, fourth in the 1,600. Andrew Kimple was fifth in the 1,600, second in the 3,200. Butler was also second in the 300 hurdles, with a school record of 39.07 seconds. Jamie McCain was sixth in the 300 hurdles and ran third leg of the relay. Adrian Morris ran the second leg of the relay.

By state, Walters was good at recounting.

Major points were gone when Nick Roark, a state-caliber sprinter injured in an early-season meet, never did get healthy, though he ran on the relay on Friday to rest Dean.

Then it got dicey.

The 400-relay team suffered the greatest indignity of all – failing to make it around the track in the District 8 meet in a two-team race when two advanced.

“We were loaded on the track but that was the best event we had if everybody was healthy and we could get the baton around,” Walters said. “We ran 42.2 seconds, a school record, last year and we were faster this year.

“Tempers flared. Kids had to repair some damage for things they said. That was the low moment, the reaction. That’s what I’m most proud of, they repaired the emotional damage.”

The fast quartet only ran together once but posted a 43.56 season best.

The Indians had a big regional but even that was bittersweet as two 3,200 runners, Ben Johnson and Jeff Howard, didn’t finish in the top three to advance, even though their times would have seeded them fifth and sixth at state.

Alex Avila, who beat Dean for the District 800 title, stepped on a nail the Monday before state and didn’t practice, then missed qualifying for the finals by less than a second.

Otherwise, everybody NC took to state scored, including Cassis, who limped home in the 100 finals to pick up one point.

“We kept the focus on the positive,” Walters said. “We kept talking about the goal at the end of the season.”

The captains, Butler, Dean, Kimple, Steve Hicks, Cory Hooper, Corbin Jarms and Jace Hovda, set five goals: good grades (“eligibility has been a problem in the past,” the coach said), team unity, compete with class, win the Greater Spokane League and state championship.

The unity goal was tested but the only thing the Indians failed to do was win the GSL. Even then there was an addendum to that: beat Ferris for the first time, which they did.

Each day the team met before practice in the weight room. Above the door was a picture of last year’s state runner-up. On the way out to practice, team members would jump up and touch the poster, to remind them what they were shooting for.

Ultimately, nothing got in their way.

Perseverance pays off for Shadle’s Brown

No one appeared more satisfied after Shadle Park won the State 4A girls 1,600 relay than Brianne Brown

She ran the third leg that got the Highlanders the lead that anchor Jordan Carlson easily protected.

“When they tried to box me on the last corner, I thought, ‘Yeah right, try me,’ ” Brown said.

Brown’s leg seemed remarkable after she finished eighth in the finals of the open 400.

She was running off the frustration of a season that almost never was.

“Bacterial meningitis really gets you,” said Brown, who reported she was in a coma prior to the season.

She improved every week, running her season best, 58.02 on Friday. Her time on Saturday was 58.40, but it was a far cry the 56.07 she ran last year.

“I was tired but I didn’t want to use me being out three weeks as an excuse,” Brown said of her season. “It was disappointing.”

With Lewis and Clark’s Eleanor Siler cruising to a state title she had envisioned since finishing third at state last year, Brown may have unconsciously eased up to save something for her teammates. She still made an impression on her rival.

“I think I cried when I found out Brianne was sick, but you just have to run your race,” Siler said. “She still did awesome. How can you be in a coma and then finish (eighth) at state?”