Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
B1
WEDNESDAY
May 25, 2016
STATE CHAMPS
Team effort gives Grant Union girls an edge
State win is the
first for coach
Sonna Smith
By Angel Carpenter
Blue Mountain Eagle
EUGENE — After win-
ning the Wapiti League cham-
pionship on May 13, Grant
Union’s track and fi eld head
coach Sonna Smith knew her
girls team had a good chance
to claim the 2A OSAA Track
and Field State Championship
title last weekend.
And that’s just what they
did.
She also knew it would
take great effort on the part of
each team member.
“Before we left for state, I
ran the numbers to see how we
were sitting for a state cham-
pionship,” Smith said. “The
rankings going in showed the
team would come up three
points short.”
The night before leaving
for the meet, she spoke with
her team.
“I told them we would
have to move up in some areas
and not give anything back
from where we were seeded,”
she said. “Every athlete did
Contributed photos/Aimee Rude
ABOVE: Grant Union senior Samantha Brock competes in the 100-meter hurdles
at the state track championships. She placed second with a time of 16.55.
TOP: The Grant Union girls track and field team poses with the 2016 State
Track and Field Championships 2A girls team trophy after winning Friday
evening. Each girl earned points for the team, which beat second-place East
Linn Christian by only half a point. The team includes, from left, Chelsie
Kodesh, Kaylee Wright, Kenzie Wilson, Samantha Brock, Sydney Brockway,
Jozie Rude and Kori Pentzer.
‘
I told them we would have to move up in some areas
and not give anything back from where we were seeded.
Every athlete did exactly that. Kenzie Wilson and Sydney
Brockway moved up, and all the other girls held their spot.’
Sonna Smith
Grant Union’s track and fi eld head coach
See CHAMPS, Page B4
EO Media Group/Kathy Aney
Kori Pentzer, of Grant Union, wins in the triple jump
Friday at the Oregon State OSAA Track & Field
Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene. She
also won the long jump Thursday for the second
consecutive year.
Pettit sprints to Garrett Hitz shatters state pole vault record
Prairie City
two state titles athletes reach
Two Monument
freshmen take on
Hayward Field
By Angel Carpenter
Blue Mountain Eagle
EUGENE — Monu-
ment’s Sophie Pettit was the
best 1A girls sprinter at the
OSAA State Track and Field
Championships, and she’s
only a freshman.
Pettit sprinted her way
to her fi rst high school state
meet fi rst-place fi nish in the
100-meter dash Friday, fol-
lowed by her second title in
the 200-meter dash later that
day.
Pettit won the 100-meter
dash with a time of 12.75,
one-tenth of a second from
setting a new 1A state meet
record. She was followed
by athletes from North Lake
and St. Stephen’s who fi n-
ished in 13.09.
See PETTIT, Page B4
Dayville freshman
wins 1A javelin title
By Angel Carpenter
Blue Mountain Eagle
EUGENE — Dayville
High School freshman Kris-
tina Humphreys set a goal
for fi rst in state in javelin and
reached it with a throw of
129-2.
She’s competed in the
sport since sixth grade, and
this year, with the help of
head coach Peter Bogardus
and assistant coaches Skip
Inscore and Savannah Martin,
Humphreys sailed to victory.
Humphreys said she was
nervous at fi rst with the big
crowd.
“I started warming up,
and then they called us down
to the fi eld,” she said. “My
heart was racing because ev-
eryone was watching. It was
crazy.”
Still, she enjoyed the ex-
perience.
“My goal next year is for
going again and seeing if I
can do better,” she said.
See HUMPHREYS, Page B2
new heights
By Angel Carpenter
Blue Mountain Eagle
EUGENE — Prairie City
High School senior Garrett Hitz
shattered the 1A pole vault state
record for the title at last week-
end’s OSAA Track and Field
State Championships.
He fi nished with a mark of
14-6.00, beating the old record
by 5 1/2 inches.
Placing well in three other
events, Hitz single-handed-
ly achieved a fi fth-place team
score.
Hitz placed second with a
personal record in javelin at 165-
5.00, was second in the 100-me-
ter hurdles with a time of 15.81
and was third in the 300 hurdles
with a personal record of 41.18.
“It was a great moment when
they announced that he had won
a fi fth-place overall team score,”
said coach Joe Weymouth. “Not
only that, but he was just edged
out of Athlete of the Meet by 1/2
a point at the 1A level.”
Weymouth was also pleased
with Zweygardt for setting and
reaching her goals.
She had a second-place fi n-
ish in pole vault with a mark of
8-6.00, at her personal record
height reached at the May 13
1A-Special District Champion-
ship in Ontario.
This was Zweygardt’s fi rst
Contributed photo/Nancy Hitz
Prairie City track and
field athlete Garrett Hitz
stands with head coach
Joe Weymouth, left, and
his pole vault coach,
and dad, Joe Hitz.
Contributed photo/Nancy Hitz
Prairie City’s Amaya Zweygardt pole vaults to
second place at Hayward Field at the OSAA Track
and Field State Championships.
year trying pole vault, and Wey-
mouth said she worked hard at it
all season.
“She discovered right away,
at the beginning of the year, that
she would be competitive,” the
coach said. “That just made her
work really hard at it with her
coach Joe Hitz.”
Seeing both athletes succeed
at the state competition was a
great experience for both the
athletes and the coaches, Wey-
mouth said. Behind the glory
was a lot of practice.
“They both worked really
hard all year long and put in ex-
tra hours,” he said.
This included attending
sports camps in Boise, and
Garrett competed in Australia
through Down Under Sports
last summer.
“They put their time in, and
that’s what it takes,” Weymouth
said.
“I can’t do it without the
coaches, my dad and Mr. Wey-
mouth,” Garrett said, adding
that he set the goal last year to
break the meet record.
“It felt good,” he said. “I
knew I could do it. I had been
hitting it during practice all
week. It was a relief that it all
came together.”
Zweygardt said she made it
her goal at the beginning of the
season to reach state.
“From there it was my goal to
make it to the podium,” she said.
She said they practiced at
their own new pole vaulting pit
at their school, and she appreci-
ated having Joe Hitz as a coach.
“We got to put up the ex-
tra time to make it all the way
there” to state, she said.