EUGENE — An emotional roller coaster of a final day at the state track meet ended with smiles on the faces of the Bay Area’s squads and second-place trophies for North Bend’s girls and Marshfield’s boys.
Along the way, Marshfield’s Bodey Lutes and North Bend’s Jason Padgett overcame heartbreaking results from the opening relay to rewrite the state meet record book.
An anticipated showdown on the home stretch for top seed Marshfield and two-time defending champion North Bend in the 4x100 relay never materialized and in the end both teams were upset for different reasons.
The Bulldogs never got to Padgett on the anchor leg when two teammates tangled on the second handoff and went down to the track. With the Bulldogs out of action, the Pirates cruised across the line in first place, only to be disqualified for an infraction in one of the exchange zones.
Padgett came back to win the 100 and 200 for the second straight year.
“It was hard going into it mentally,” he said. “The 4x100 was really hard on me.”
He spent time praying and refocusing on his goals for the two individual sprints and then put on a show.
Padgett’s winning time in the 100 of 10.82 was .10 faster than he ran last year but just missed both the meet and North Bend school records.
The 200, on the other hand, was one for the ages.
Padgett won in 21.50 seconds, a new school record and an all-time best for Class 4A in Oregon.
The runner-up, Crook County’s Gabe Love (21.70) and third-place finisher Lutes (21.81) also were under the old record of 21.90.
Lutes, who had entered with the state-leading time in the event, said he did what he could.
“There’s not much I can say,” Lutes said. “He’s fast.”
Lutes sped to a meet record of his own in the 400 meters, 47.97 seconds, trimming .30 seconds from the record he set last year.
“I was pretty mad from the 4x100 and I took it out on the track,” he said.
Teammate Quinton Kloster was seventh in the race with his own personal best, 51.77.
Lutes said when he watched Kloster cross the line in first place in the relay, it was the happiest he’s been at a track meet.
Ironically, the Pirates ended up with the first-place medal in the 4x400 relay at the end of the meet even though Baker beat Marshfield to the finish line. Baker was disqualified after its anchor leg threw the baton in celebration after finishing the race, leaving Marshfield’s quartet of Joe Herbert, Kloster, Chandler Wyatt and Lutes in first place with their time of 3:24.69.
“I told the guys, ‘This is our first-place 4x100 medal,’” Lutes said.
The Baker disqualification also put North Bend on the award stand with the team of Andrew Efraimson, Landon Takenaka-Gaul, Sam Mickelson and Padgett finishing eighth in 3:34.40.
“It’s always the best feeling,” Padgett said of getting a relay medal with three friends.
North Bend finished in a tie for seventh in the team race, but had other highlights Saturday.
Miles Baxter finished fourth in the high jump, clearing 6-2 ¾ on his third attempt to set a new personal best and score five points for the Bulldogs.
Baxter also jumped well enough on his first attempt in the long jump to reach the final, but was injured in the relay collision and unable to continue.
North Bend’s Wyatt Smith was fifth in the javelin with a throw of 160-5.
Marshfield, meanwhile, moved up to second place in the trophy race with Baker’s disqualification in the relay.
Crook County ran away with the title with 96 points, while Marshfield had 46 and Pendleton 45.
Marshfield coach Chad Scriven described the situation as “the most miserable second place I’ve ever been through.”
Marshfield’s relay disqualification was a minor infraction, but was a violation. And Scriven said “I feel bad for the Baker kid.”
The coach was pleased with how his athletes performed, though.
“It’s a stupidly young team,” he said.
Lutes and Kloster are juniors and Wyatt is a sophomore. Carter McGriff, who was on the 4x100 team, is a freshman. Herbert is a senior, but a baseball player who did track for the first time this year. Marshfield had another baseball player, Drake Rogers, on its winning 4x400 relay team last year and Lutes said he already is looking at another possible recruit from that squad.
Marshfield’s Jaxson Stovall, who was 10th in the 1,500, finishing in 4:15.51, is also just a sophomore.
The Pirates had started the day with 18 points, all from the pole vault Friday when John Parks won for the third straight year and Danner Wilson placed second. They didn’t secure second place in the team race until the final event.
North Bend’s girls, meanwhile, were in second all day and stayed in a tie for that spot because of their own exciting relay effort.
The Bulldogs were seeded into the slower first heat because of their qualifying time at the district meet, but the quartet of Emma Slade, Ellie Massie, Eva Jensen and Lauren Efraimson won the heat with a time of 4:10.18 that ultimately was good enough for third overall.
And when Scappoose held off Cascade for the title in the fast heat, the Bulldogs and Cascade finished tied for second in the team race with 51 points, a ways back from Philomath’s 74.
“That’s pretty cool,” North Bend coach Jake Smith said of the Bulldogs finishing second. “We’ve got some young kids who are pretty exciting.”
The only seniors to score for North Bend were pole vaulters Abby Woodruff and Roxy Day, but they gave the Bulldogs a huge lift to start Saturday’s action.
Woodruff and Day finished first and second — Day’s third time finishing runner-up in her high school career.
For Woodruff, it was redemption after she failed to clear her opening height last year. She said she was relieved when she got cleanly over the bar after entering the competition at 9-6 ½.
“Last year was pretty awful,” she said, adding that her state performance impacted her well into the summer, leaving her with a mental block and fear to get back to the event.
That carried over to an inconsistent season this spring.
“I was nervous going into district and state,” she said.
But she woke up happy and relaxed Saturday and competed well.
“That first bar, once you clear it you get in a zone,” she said. “You are able to relax.”
Woodruff ultimately cleared 10-8 ¼. She was over the bar on her third attempt at 11-1, which would have been a new best, but her pole knocked it off.
That didn’t dampen her spirits.
“I was so happy when we got first and second,” she said.
“I’m happy to have Abby with me,” Day said.
Day didn’t miss any jumps though 9-9 ¼, her fourth height. She got over 10 feet on her second attempt and clinched second place when she made 10-2 ¾, a new best, on her third attempt. Junction City’s Elaina Deming had matched Day vault-for-vault until she failed to get over the bar at the height, and finished third.
Day, who was unable to get over 10-5 ½, also placed second as a freshman and last year, each time setting a new best in the process.
“I’ve never PRed anywhere but state,” she said.
Drew Hood, who placed third in the javelin and seventh in the triple jump on Friday (Efraimson was fourth in that event), placed third in the 100-meter hurdles in 16.18 seconds for North Bend.
“I’m so happy,” said Hood, who was just third in her preliminary heat Friday. “I came into this race thinking I had so much more in the tank. I love hurdles.”
North Bend missed one other chance for points on the track when Ellie Massie was ninth in the 1,500.
Massie, who was second in the 3,000 on Friday, couldn’t keep up with the fast pace at the end of the shorter race, finishing in 4:58.59.
But the final relay meant a runner-up trophy for the Bulldogs.
Marshfield’s girls got their only points from Daphne Scriven, who finished third in the discus.
Scriven, who won the title as both a sophomore and junior, improved with every throw in the finals, her best mark 112-8 in the final round.
Estacada’s Abby Behrman took the title with a throw of 126-6.
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