2A GIRLS
Oakridge, Lakeview duel to the end
This one came down to the 4x4 where Zoe Skordahl, Samantha Boyd and their Oakridge teammates were pitted against Keli Hall, the Baldovino sisters and their Lakeview teammates.
Lakeview had 58 points, Portland Christian 56, Oakridge 54. Portland Christian had no team in the race. Lakeview had the state 400 champion in Hall. And just to make matters more interesting, another team, St. Mary’s-Medford, had broken the meet record in the 4x4 heats on Friday. The problem, at least for Lakeview, was this: Hall, who had just won her 4th straight 400 state championship, was in trouble.
“I dislocated my right shoulder during basketball season, in January,” she said. It was wrapped so tight throughout the two days of the meet that it took help from a teammate to remove it.
“My doctor told me I needed surgery, because I tore a tendon and some cartilage,” Hall said. “I wore a brace during basketball season, but every game, I would dislocate it again.”
The problem with the surgery was that it would prevent her from competing in the state track championships, in her senior season. “I told them I was going to wait.”
The shoulder injury presented new problems in track, however. “I won state high jump last year,” she said, “and before that long and triple. But because of my shoulder, I couldn’t jump.
“That meant I needed another event.” That’s one way to think of it.
“So two Tuesdays ago, I decided to try the 300 hurdles.” An utter novice at the event, she broke her school’s record, qualified for district, advanced to state, and on Saturday, less than an hour before the 4x4, she won that event as well, finishing three-quarters of a second ahead of Boyd. (In the heats, she broke the meet record.)
She was so wobbly on the 300H awards stand, though, that she needed help from an official to get to ground level. When Lakeview walked from check-in to the 4x4 start, they brought their alternate, but Hall insisted upon running. To compensate, she ran leadoff – an exhausted-looking 62.9, well off her best – but it kept her team in the hunt. After the handoff, she crumpled into a ball, like a turtle, neatly tucked into the confines of her lane. She needed half a minute to get up. Oakridge took the lead and never looked back. The Baldovinos, Ashley and Tiffany, and freshman Katie Stofleth kept Lakeview alive, and they wound up 3rd, behind Oakridge and St. Mary’s. The outcome:
Lakeview 64, Oakridge 64
Hall, a 5-foot-7, 125-pound 18-year-old, finished her state-meet career with victories in six different events, including two in the 200 and four in the 400. Here she set a meet record of 25.99 in the 200 and won the 400 in 58.07, short of her own meet record and all-time state 2A best of 56.85. Her MR in the IH is 46.69. She plans to continue her track career at the University of Idaho.
Talissa Baldovino, a junior, was 2nd in the 400. Her sister Ashley, a sophomore, won the 1,500 and 3,000, repeating in the latter.
(Lakeview, the county seat of Lake County in far southeastern Oregon, is not far from California and Nevada. It is ranching country, located on the former Bullard Cattle Ranch; is headquarters for the Fremont National Forest, and is at 4,800 feet altitude, on the edge of the Cascade Mountains.)
For Oakridge, Skordahl won the high jump and triple jump and placed in the 400, while Boyd placed in both hurdles, and both ran on that winning 4x4.
St. Mary’s was led by Morgan Martin, who set a meet record in the 800 (2:18.46) and was 3rd in the 400 behind the Lakeview pair. She ran anchor on the 4x4 that set the meet record in the heats (4:06.86), and just for good measure, she ran leadoff on the 2nd-place 4x1. St. Mary’s finished 4th with 54 points.
Portland Christian, which wound up 3rd with 56 points, was led by thrower Alexis Arnold, a sophomore, who won the shot (37-10 ½ meet record) and disc (109-2).
BOYS
Portland Christian wins it in the field
Portland Christian won the team championship by 10 points over Oakridge and Culver, 68-58. Bonanza, despite the best efforts of Stephen Dickinson, was 4th with 54.
Portland won 3 field events, 2 with meet records. Preston Dace set an MR in the TJ at 44-2 ¾; Nathan Rowlett also set a record, 180-1 in the javelin, and David Nuttelman won the vault, at 13-6. All are underclassmen. PC also placed in both relays.
Oakridge was led by Max Long, who repeated as 1,500 and 3,000 champion. He ran 4:00.10, a meet record, in the 15, and 8:55.30 in the 3.
Bonanza, a small ranching community east of Klamath Falls, at 4,100 feet altitude, was led by Dickinson, a strapping junior who won the 100 hurdles (15.20 meet record), 300 hurdles (41.14) and high jump (6-6) and placed 2nd in the long jump.
Coulter Mastenbroek, a sophomore at Scio, in the Willamette Valley not far from Monmouth, took the sprints in 11.45/22.75. In the heats on Friday he set meet records of 11.16/22.71.