Sports
sportsed@lclackamas.edu
Wednesday, June 1. 2011
The Clackamas Print 7
Track and field ends season strong
By John William Howard
Associate Sports Editor
expectations set out forthem. “Everyone gave a
really good performance when it counted at (the
championships) and you could see the heart and
desire for success in the faces.”
Another strong contributor is Venezuelan
sophomore Keisa Monterola, who won the
2005 South American Junior Championships
in the pole vault at age 17. Monterola’s story is
an interesting one: She began as a gymnast, but
outgrew her sport and turned to pole vaulting.
“Jumping made me scared and excited at the
same time, but the latter emotion won through
as I was even beating the male vaulters way
back then,” Monterola told the International
Association of Athletics Federations’ official
website.
In 2009, Monterola looked to attend a uni
versity in the United States but was held back
from attending a four-year institution because
of a lack of English competency. Instead, she
made the decision to come to Clackamas,
where, despite some difficulties, she has made
progress.
“She was a 14 feet 1 inch pole vaulter back
when she was a world junior (champion) when
she was 17,” said McHone. “Some setbacks
happened and now she’s getting back into
things. It took a little over a year to get adapted
to living here in the United States, being a col
lege student and figuring out how to live on
basically nothing. She’s figured out how to
train at the level that she needs to while staying
healthy and handling the stressors of both the
academic stuff and meeting the expectations
of what they want her to do back at home (in
Venezuela).”
Monterola began the season slowly
but turned on the afterburners to finish her
With track and field being the last of
Clackamas’ sports finishing up its season, now
is a g( >od time to look back at the difficult path
hat the athletes took to get to where they are
iow. The whole team had ups and downs but
¡ventually peaked just in time for the champi-
inships.
“They’ve struggled a little bit during the
eason, but they’ve taken care of business,” said
¿eatI Coach Keoni McHone. “When it came to
his meet we did what was needed to be done.”
Earlier in the season, McHone mentioned
he struggles that the team was going through
vith and training remaining healthy. One such
thlete that had a midseason trip-up was sopho-
nore mid-distance runner Mary Botsfoid, who
tins the 800- and 1500-meter races. A moti-
■ated and competitive athlete, she said that her
iggest difficulty is “finding the line between
aining as hard as I could and staying injury
re.”
Around the middle of April, something went
rong. Botsford’s 1500-meter time slowed by
.0 seconds between the April 1 Willamette
jvitational and the April 22 Oregon Relays,
he remarked that she had felt as though
mething wasn’t right, and it was affecting
;r races.
Whatever it was, it shook off in a hurry. After
e low point of the Oregon Relays, Botsford
et a icw personal record every time she laced
p t run the 1500-meter race, and ended up
nproving her career record by 16 seconds in
ne ear. In addition to that, Botsford moved
) into second place in the school’s top 10
it for the women’s 800-meter run, took third
retail at the NWAACC championship meet
id achieved All-American status.
“I am very happy with my season. I finally
toke into a new level of fast with some big PRs
id I was very excited to make All-American at
John William Howard Clackamas Print
be championships) and I felt like I made a
Track Coach Keoni McHone goes over the results of his athletes during the
aod contribution to our team,” said Botsford,
Pacific Northwest Relays on April 8 at the Oregon City High School Stadium.
to also said that she thought the team met the
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Clackamas career. Not only did she win the
NWAACC pole vault competition, she blew
the nearest runner-up out of the sky, vaulting
14 feet 2.5 inches for first place, compared
to the second place vault of 11 feet 7 inches.
That vault was good for second place on
the Clackamas top 10 list just behind the
NWAACC record holder Becky Holladay’s 14
feet 4 inches.
Holladay went on to win an NCAA title at
the University of Oregon in 2003 and finished
sixth at the 2008 Olympic trials. It would seem
that Monterola is headed the same direction.
Earlier this month, she signed with Eastern
Washington University on a full-ride scholar
ship, something that will surely be her next step
to stardom.
While many athletes found success, there
is perhaps none that dealt with more adversity
than sophomore Dominik Walker. Walked suf
fered a hamstring injury in the second meet of
the season and was sent back to square one.
“When I pulled my (hamstring) the second
meet of the season it was really hard for me to
be positive because I knew that I didn’t have
a lot of time to shake my injury,” said Walker,
who also spoke about the value of McHone’s
input and support.
“Athletically, he’s our top male athlete, but
because of his injuries, he’s been struggling
with his events and it has been W W psycho
logically tough on him,” said McHone. “We
sat down and talked about what he needed to
do at the NWAACC championships, and he
did just above what he needed him to do. If
he hadn’t done that, we probably would have
taken third.”
These three stories show not only the grit
and resilience of the athletes themselves, but
the ability of McHone to take failure stories
and turn them into success stories, despite over
whelming odds. Presented with a crumbling
track and aging equipment, McHone has built
a strong program and outpaced heavyweights
such as Lane Community College, who boast
in their brand new facility. Just imagine what
the program will look like as time goes on.