EVERETT When Mariner High School hosted the M-P, Arlington and Kamiak track teams May 3, it was a last chance for athletes on the bubble to get the marks they needed to qualify for postseason competition.
But thats not to say the schools left their best athletes at home.
The Marysville girls team won eight of 18 events and placed second in nine more to tally a meet-high 101.5 team points.
Michaela Caldwell and Robin Mueller finished 1-2 in the pole vault, clearing 10-3 and 10 respectively. Lauren Ainsworth and Marissa Schafer accomplished the same feat in the 3,200-meter run, while teammate Amanda Weaver finished fourth. Ainsworth and Schafer also finished consecutively in the 1,600, seven seconds separating their third- and fourth-place finishes.
M-P sophomore Alex McDonald won the 300 hurdles with a time of 49.0 and placed second in the 100 hurdles to Arlington standout Brooklyn Holton, her 17.5 a sliver better than another Arlington athlete, senior Shayna Prause.
Junior Nicolette Runyan won the 100 in 13.1 and the 200 in 26.5.
A number of other Tomahawk girls placed in multiple individual events: Nancy Couls won the triple jump in 35-9 while finishing behind teammate Jade Hansons 5-3 high jump with a 4-8 of her own. Senior Laura DeGerness placed third in the triple jump and fifth in the long jump with respective leaps of 32-7 and 14-1.
Tyler Wigington placed second in the girls 800 with a time of 2:37.3 and cleared 4-4 in the high jump for sixth place, while senior Myranda Dudgeon jumped 32 feet in the triple jump for fifth place and threw 97-1 in the javelin for sixth. Junior thrower Tierra Moses placed fifth in the shot put and sixth in the discus at 29-5 and 89 feet.
The boys placed third with 70 points, but trailed the first-place Mariner team by only three team points, the difference of one third-place finish in an event.
Senior Josh Rabung won the 100 and 200 for the boys in times of 11.20 and 23 seconds.
Justin King won the pole vault at 12-6, while teammate Taylor Gibson cleared the same height for third. Shawn DeLappe finished fourth, his 12-foot jump two feet better than the next competitor.
Sophomore Andy Abadam won the long jump and finished sixth in the 100. Abadams 21-4 long jump beat teammate Duane LaPeyri by a little over three inches. LaPeyri placed fourth in the high jump too, at 5-10.
Elsewhere in the field, senior Kenny York continued wowing his javelin competition, throwing 169-6 not his best, but still almost 11 feet better than second place.
Sophomore distance runner Ryan Lanphere pulled off two notable finishes, placing third in the 800 in 2:05.7 and fourth in the 1,600 at 4:41.8.
Sitting out were M-Ps freshman athletes who had competed in the Wesco North Freshman Championships April 30.
The boys and girls both finished fourth in the freshman league champs, said M-P track coach Randy Davis. Our numbers were down this year in the number of freshman we sent. And fourth place is pretty good considering how many people we sent, so we were pretty pleased.
While regular varsity standouts Alicia Oden, Cali Cull and Mark Pangilinan each took the title of freshman league champion in at least one event for M-P, several other freshmen emerged at the meet with strong finishes.
Our 4×100 boys freshman relay, they were winners. On that team was Mark (Pangilinan), Zach Hanson, Sam Christopher and AJ Kvangnes. And they just kind of ran away with that race. They did a great job, Davis said.
In the pole vault, Sarah Clark was freshman league champion with a height of 8-6, he added.
Although taking top honors at the freshman championship does not guarantee athletes a spot in the prelims at Lake Stevens May 11, Davis expects several of the Tomahawks top finishers to go on this season.
Some are definitely varsity perfomers and others are swing. Its a little bit of both. We try to get quite a few of these kids in varsity meets, Davis said. Most of these kids are moving on to this weeks league championship meet. A lot of these kids are our top performers in those events.