TACOMA – With the competition nipping at his heels, Aberdeen’s Bryan Sidor found a little extra in the tank.

The Bobcats’ senior sprinter ran a personal-record time of 49.16 to win the the 400 meters at the 2A state championship meet on Saturday, giving Sidor his first-ever state championship.

“A couple of guys passed me, which was OK I just made sure to kick a little later, because there was one guy out in lane five that was still bringing it pretty strong,” he said. “I was like ‘OK, this is my time. I gotta do it now,’ and I did it. I kicked at the right time.”

That late push was enough to give Sidor the state championship in one of his final high school races.

With about an hour of recovery time in between races, Sidor then ran the 200-meter dash and took third with a PR of 22.18.

Cheney’s Charles Johnson won the 200 with a time of 21.53.

Sidor said he would have liked to shave some more time off of his 200 but was pleased with the way he performed under the circumstances.

“I was a little upset that the 200 and 400 were so close because I kind of ran on an empty stomach and didn’t get time to rest,” he said. “I was out there running with guys who were state leaders, so it was a little tough to get a higher standing than that.”

Aberdeen’s other state-qualifying runner, Faith Cardenas, also finished her high school career with an admirable result, taking second in the 400 meters with a time of 57.94.

Cardenas got off to a fast start in the race from the fifth lane and was in contention in the first 200 meters of the race. Though she didn’t earn gold, Cardenas was still pleased with the way she ran.

“I felt really good during the race and I felt really confident,” she said. “I wasn’t feeling the best before and I was a little worried, but when I got on my blocks all the worries went away and I felt pretty good running it. The only thing I’m mad about is I was 0.04 seconds away from the school record and I really wanted to break that, but I’m glad I hit a personal record.”

Until she got to the track Saturday morning it appeared Cardenas would also be running in the 200-meter dash. She was later informed by meet officials that the qualifying time she posted in Friday’s heat wasn’t enough to get her into the finals.

According to Assistant Executive WIAA Director Brian Smith, a clerical error by WIAA officials caused a runner in lane three in the second 200-meter heat to be erroneously disqualified after a runner from lane three was disqualified in the first heat.

“We didn’t catch the error until after the runners had left. We really wish we could have caught that in time,” he said.

That mistake caused another runner’s time to not be counted, temporarily giving Cardenas the last spot in the finals.

Cardenas, who was skeptical when coaches told her she had qualified, said she had a feeling her time wasn’t quite fast enough to qualify for finals and wasn’t too disappointed when she found out she was out of the race.

“They were calling my coach to the timing tent all day and when she got over there they told us it was clerical error. I kind of knew it was too good to be true,” she said. “I saw the times I think I got the ninth time out of all of them so I was like ‘how did I get eighth?’ I wasn’t too bummed about it.”

Both Cardenas and Sidor will now look forward to their college careers. Cardenas will head to University of San Francisco and Sidor will make his way to Central Washington University in the fall.

Aberdeen head coach April Meissner said it was good to see two of her college-bound runners put up their best times on the last day of their high school careers and hopes it inspire some of her younger athletes.

“It was a perfect weekend, start to finish. We had had three personal records in three events on Saturday and we almost broke some school records,” she said. “We had a lot of sophomores out here which is great because its good for the future. It’s kind of perfect that we end with two seniors who are out to go run track in college.”