3A GIRLS
IT’S DINSMORE, STAM ALL THE TIME
If it wasn’t Jaela Dinsmore of Burns winning another race on the track, it was Beth Stam of Toledo winning another in the field.
Dinsmore won the sprint triple for the 2nd year in a row. A disqualification in the 4x1 heats on Friday cost her a chance at a fourth. “I give it my best,” she said. “I try to be strong. I train hard. I’m giving it all I have.”
Dinsmore, a senior headed to Willamette University in track and volleyball, won the 100 in 12.64, the 200 in a meet-record 25.49, the 400 in a meet-record 56.98. The 200 time was 2nd all-time in 3A to the 25.35 by Nicole Brown of Creswell in 2000; the 400 broke the 3A all-time best of 57.1, set in 1985 by Marnie Branstiter of Toledo.
“I worked hard on my starts this year,” Dinsmore said. “To get all three is overwhelming. I really feel grateful.”
Beth Stam, a senior at Toledo, a coastal community not far from Newport in Lincoln County, won not 3 but 4 field events – the same 3 as a year ago, when she won the three jumps (HJ, LJ, TJ) – plus the javelin, something new to her repertoire.
“The javelin’s new, so that’s fun,” said Stam, a 5-foot-6, 145-pound 17-year-old. “Isn’t it an event in the heptathlon?” she asked.
Stam already knew the answer to that. “I want to do the heptathlon in college, so I want to do all the different events.” She’s done one heptathlon so far, scoring 4,142 points in a meet last summer. She hopes to resume that, and basketball, at George Fox College.
“I tried the javelin this spring, and I kept messing up,” Stam said. “Then one day, things just came together. I threw it, and whoosh, it just went, and I said, ‘Oh! I can throw it!’”
On Friday she won the high jump at 5-4 – the only competitor in the field to clear 5-0 – the long jump at 17-4 ½, and the jav at 133-6, a foot and a half short of her all-time best. (That throw of 135-0 put her 3rd on the all-time 3A list.) On Saturday she won the triple jump with a jump of 37-2, a personal best and more than 2 feet better than her nearest competitor. “I like the triple jump the most,” Stam said, “because it’s easier to PR. All you had to do is add 1 inch in each jump!”
Stam was point guard on the Toledo basketball team and ran cross-country for two seasons. The heptathlon, after all, does include the 800. It was pointed out that four victories equal 40 points, a lot in a single state meet. Had she ever been accused of being a one-girl track team? “No.” she said. “Never.” “Well, you have now.” “Oh. Well, my teammate Kara got 3rd in the javelin, too, that was pretty nice.”
That gave Toledo 46 points, and sure enough, with one event remaining, Toledo was atop the leader board.
Alas, Catlin Gabel of Portland and Nyssa both had teams in the closing 4x4. It was between them for the team title. Catlin Gabel won the race and the championship, with 55 points. They ran 4:02.90, breaking Sherman’s meet record by nearly 3 seconds. Nyssa, 2nd in 4:08, finished with 50 points.
Hayley Ney got two 3rds for CG in the distances, despite being defending champion in both. Meghan Blood of Valley Catholic and freshman Sydney Snook of Gold Beach were 1-2 in both the 1,500 and 3,000. Ney and Blood are both juniors. Ney also ran 3rd leg on that clinching 4x4 team.
3A BOYS
One shoe is enough for Hevner
Another team title was on the line in the final race of the long two-day championships, the boys 3A 4x4. Westside Christian and Grant Union were 1-2 in the standings, with 59 and 56 points, but neither had a team in the race. Vale, standing 3rd with 53, did, and they had Zack Hevner and Cam Anthony, state champions earlier in the day in the 400 and 800, ready to run the final two legs.
Cascade Christian was in the lead at the final exchange, when Anthony passed off to Hevner, a few meters behind. “We had to get in the top 2 for the state title,” Hevner said later, “so we were going for it.”
“When Cam handed off to me,” Hevner said, “he stepped on my heel. My right shoe came off around the first turn.”
Hevner did not appear to hesitate; he kept going as if nothing had happened. He laughed it off. “It’s a good thing it’s a soft track,” he joked. Down the home straight, he passed Cascade Christian, ran 49.3 on his carry; Vale won the race in 3:26.87 and won the team title by 4 points.
Hevner, who had won the 100, 200 and 400 earlier in the day – each time wearing both shoes – was already looking ahead. “We have graduation in the morning. It’s a long drive home, so we have to get going.” Vale, he estimated, was 7 ½ hours by car.
(Vale, in the sagebrush region of Malheur County, is not far from Ontario, Ore., and Nampa, Idaho, in the Mountain time zone, at 2,243 feet altitude. It is near the Owyhee Dam – once the 2nd-highest dam in the world – and Sucker Creek Canyon.)
Jeremy Kreutzbender of Amity repeated as double hurdles champion, running 15.34/40.88. In the field events, Bo Johnson of Toledo threw the discus 167-4, Levi Case of Nyssa put the shot 51-8.
One of Case’s teammates at Nyssa, sophomore Brian Nelson, came from way back in the final 200 meters to pass Daniel Friesen, the 3,000 champion, and win the 1,500 in 4:14. Hours later that would be crucial when Friesen’s team, Westside Christian, was trying to protect a small lead in the last race of the day, no matter how many shoes Zack Hevner was wearing.