Hoquiam’s strengths trumped Aberdeen’s to give the Grizzlies what, in one gender, was a tiebreaking victory in its track and field rivalry with the Bobcats.
With their sprinters and jumpers outscoring Aberdeen’s distance runners, the Grizzly boys and girls swept their trans-Myrtle Street track rivals on Thursday at Sea Breeze Oval.
The Grizzlies took team honors in a four-school meet that also included Onalaska and Rainier. Their boys, with 108 points, finished 43 ahead of the runner-up Bobcats. Hoquiam’s girls outpointed second-place Rainier, 78-69.
In separate dual-meet scoring against Aberdeen, the Grizzlies prevailed 83-61 in the boys meet and 73-63 in the girls contest.
The Hoquiam-Aberdeen meet matched teams with distinctly different assets. Both coaches agreed that the nature of track and its scoring favored Hoquiam in that type of showdown.
“Our strengths outnumber their strengths,” Grizzly coach Tim Pelan summarized. “If you look at the events, there are more points for sprints, jumps and relays. That’s what we’ve prided ourselves on. Aberdeen has a really good long-distance group and they have for years. Aberdeen had definitely improved a ton and we knew going in they were going to be a handful on the girls side. Kelly (Bobcat coach Kelly Stewart) has done a really good job and so has (distance coach) Sherrie Green. They’ve produced a really good group of distance runners.”
“Their sprinters are consistently faster,” Stewart observed. “If you look at the distances, it was just the opposite. The main thing is that sprinters run relays and that counts a lot.”
According to unofficial Hoquiam historian Ralph Lovelace, this was the 78th Aberdeen-Hoquiam meeting in boys track. Incredibly, that series was deadlocked at 38-38-1 entering yesterday’s encounter.
There wasn’t much doubt about the boys outcome this time, as the Grizzlies won 11 overall events.
Nolan Hoiness and Zach Phillips were two-time individual winners for the Grizzlies. Hoiness was clocked in 10.9 in taking the 100 meters and 23.4 in winning the 200. Phillips swept the hurdles.
Hoquiam also captured all three male throwing events, with Seth Moore taking the shot put, Joseph Winn the discus and Evan Erickson the javelin. Erickson, who also anchored Hoquiam’s winning mile relay team and established a significant personal best in the discus, drew particular praise from Pelan.
Freshman Dante Lopez, who has been overshadowed by some of Hoquiam’s other sprinters and middle-distances runners, notched his first-ever victory in the 400.
Inclement weather helped dim the luster from another much-anticipated duel between Hoquiam’s Cole Smith and Aberdeen’s Tyson Stipic in the boys high jump. Both went out at 6-2, but Smith (who had cleared 6-8 in the Oregon Relays last weekend) won on fewer misses.
Pelan noted, however, that both standouts had to take off into the teeth of a stiff wind — a frequent occurrence that makes Sea Breeze Oval far from a jumper’s paradise.
Stipic did win the triple jump with a 42-4 mark that was just shy of a PR. Stewart also noted the performances of Bryceson Talley and Brock Struthers in the throws.
Hoquiam owed its girls victory primarily to its domination of the jumps.
Mikaila Johnson, Alicia Lopez and Olivia Rose took the high jump, long jump and triple jump, respectively — and the Grizzlies went 1-2 overall in the first two of those events.
Lopez had a hand in three wins. She also took the 200 meters and anchored the 4x200 relay foursome. Rose wound up with two wins (including a relay) and two seconds.
Aberdeen won only two events overall — Hailey Gibson in the 3,200 and Micah Carcellar in the 400 — but decisively outpointed the Grizzlies in the throwing events. Stewart cited Megan West, Lillian Walsh, Shayna Wilson and Moriah Martin for their performances in those events and Marissa Sodders for her showing in the distances.
Carcellar’s victory was unorthodox, to put it mildly.
No one from any of the four schools answered the final call for the girls 400. Just as the event was about to be canceled, Stewart persuaded Carcellar, who was standing at the side of the track in preparation for competing in the 800, to enter the shorter race and pick up an uncontested victory.
Hoquiam’s Savannah Smith, the all-county girls 400-meter champion, sat out to rest a strained hamstring.
Ironically, the meet’s finest performance arguably came from an Onalaska runner. Stephen Bottoms, the possessor of the state’s second-best 1A marks in both events, impressively outdueled Aberdeen distance ace Poli Baltazar in the 800 and 1,600.
Although thundershowers forecast for Thursday afternoon never materialized, the meet included virtually every other type of weather except for snow and warmth. The athletes warmed up in a hailstorm and endured periodic showers along with periods of partial clearing.
The Bobcats will compete in the Shelton Invitational on Saturday. The Grizzlies will skip that meet and divide their squad between a league meet at Forks on Thursday and the Southwest Washington Classic in Woodland on May 4.
BOYS
Hoquiam 108, Aberdeen 65, Rainier 59, Onalaska 28
100 — 10.9 — Hoiness (H), Pelan (H), Brooks (A). 200 — 23.4 — Hoiness (H), Pelan (H), Brooks (A). 400 — 57.4 — Lopez (H), Henry (Rain), Houtz (Rain). 800 — 2:01.4 — Bottoms (Ona), Baltazar (A), Book (A). 1,600 — 4:25.6 — Bottoms (Ona), Baltazar (A), Spencer (A). 3,200 — 9:58.1 — Bottoms (Ona), Spencer (A), Book (A). 110 H — 16.6 — Phillips (H), Shaw (Rain), Kastl (Ona). 300 H — 45.9 — Phillips (H), Rowe (A), Farrer (A). 4x100 R — 44.2 — Hoquiam, Rainier, Aberdeen. 4x400 R — 3:55.0 — Hoquiam, Onalaska, Rainier.
HJ — 6-0 — Smith (H), Stipic (A), MacRae (Rain). LJ — 19-3 — Blakey (Rain), Williams (H), Henry (Rain). TJ — 42-4 — Stipic (A), Blakey (Rain), Williams (H). PV — 11-9 — Henry (Rain), Phillips (H), McCann (H). Shot — 41-1/2 — Moore (H), Talley (A), Whisman (Rain). Disc — 143-2 — Winn (H), Whisman (Rain), Erickson (H). Jav — 156-8 — Erickson (H), Smith (H), Struthers (A).
GIRLS
Hoquiam 78, Rainier 69, Aberdeen 53, Onalaska 45
100 — 13.2 — Johnson (Ona), Rose (H), Whitney (Ona). 200 — 28.4 — Lopez (H), Bottoms (Ona). 400 — 1:11.1 — Carcellar (A). 800 — 2:37.5 — Johnson (Ona), Sodders (A), Lisherness (A). 1,600 — 5:41.1 — Givens (Ona), Sodders (A), Smith (A). 3,200 — 12:18.1 — Gibson (A), Hayden (Ona), Lisherness (A). 100 H — 17.1 — Talcott (Rain), Bowen (H), Haley (Rain). 300 H — 53.2 — Dahl (Rain), Meamber (H), Mitchell (H). 4x100 R — 53.1 — Hoquiam, Rainier, Onalaska. 4x200 R — 1:52.7 — Hoquiam, Rainier. 4x400 R — 4:41.0 — Rainier, Aberdeen.
HJ — 5-0 — Johnson (H), Lopez (H), Bottoms (Ona). LJ — 15-11 — Lopez (H), Rose (H), Johnson (H). TJ — 31-3 — Rose (H), Baker (Rain), Wheeler (A). PV —9-0 — Talcott (Rain), Bowen (H), Nielsen (H). Shot — 35-7 — Dahl (Rain), Martin (A), Skinner (Rain). Disc — 105-4 — Dahl (Rain), West (A), Nedrow (Rain). Jav — 122-2 — Givens (Ona), Talcott (Rain), Wilson (A).
