Philomath High’s track and field teams emerged from a field of more than two dozen schools at the Meet of Champions Saturday in Sweet Home with the girls beating out Cascade for first place and the boys taking second behind Cottage Grove.
Warriors junior Adele Beckstead had an impressive meet by winning the 1,500-meter run by nearly 6 seconds and the 3,000 by more than 18 seconds. Junior Janice Hellesto won the long jump, senior Ahnika Tryon took first in the javelin and the 4-by-100 relay outsprinted the field for a victory.
The girls scored 108 points to finish ahead of Cascade’s 86. Molalla and Junction City were a distant third and fourth with 61 and 60 points, respectively.
For the boys, junior Warwick Bushnell picked up a win in the 400-meter dash and despite scoring in just one field event, the team piled up enough points on the track to help the team to the second-place finish. Philomath had 51 points, which was behind Cottage Grove’s 65 and ahead of Cascade’s 49. Banks was a close fourth with 46.
Beckstead’s most impressive victory came in the 3,000 with a season-best time of 10:51.31. The time is about 6 seconds off her personal-record pace at Hayward Field in last season’s state meet. In the 1,500, Philomath had a 1-2 finish with Beckstead’s 5:04.29 and junior Melea Lattin’s 5:10.21.
Hellesto and Tryon both had wins in the field events to give a major boost to the team scoring. Hellesto went 17 feet, 4.5 inches, her longest jump this season, to win fairly easily. Senior Ellie Morton was fourth in 15-10.75. And in the javelin, Tryon was unchallenged with a throw of 126-2, which was 2 feet, 1 inch off her PR.
The 4-by-100 relay of Morton, junior Natalie Dunn, junior Petra Hernandez and Hellesto covered the oval in 50.34 seconds ahead of runner-up Cascade, which crossed the finish line in 50.52. The team’s 4-by-400 relay was fourth in 4:27.28 with Hernandez, junior Brooke McDaniel, Lattin and Morton.
Hellesto placed in two individual running events with second in the 100 in 12.91 and fourth in the 200 in 26.81. Dunn had a runner-up finish in the 400 with a season-best 58.86. Junior Anneka Steen placed third in the high jump by clearing 4-10.
Elsewhere, junior Hanna McDaniel placed in two field events with a tie for fifth in the high jump (4-8) and fourth in the pole vault (8-0). Also scoring team points were senior Madison Juhl in the discus (sixth, 94-3) and junior Aspen Russell in the pole vault (seventh, 7-6).
Bushnell had a personal-best time in his 400-meter dash victory at 50.41 seconds. The performance was almost a full second faster than the runner-up. In the 200, he had a season-best 23.06 behind Santiam Christian senior John Coiner, who was the 3A state runner-up in the event a year ago. Sophomore CD Nuno was third in 23.41.
Sophomores Leo Pausch and Lukas Hernandez scored in both the 3,000 and 1,500. In the longer race, Pausch had a PR performance with a time of 9:26.09, which was good for second. Hernandez placed third in 9:40.55. In the 1,500, Pausch was fifth in 4:20.67 and Hernandez sixth in 4:22.51 — both of those times being PRs for the athletes.
Also scoring team points were senior Lukas Dunn in the 800 (sixth, 2:06.96) and sophomore Josiah Peters in the javelin (sixth, 152-0).
Entrants needed to qualify to participate in the meet based on standards for each event. After all of those athletes were identified, meet organizers filled out the rest of the field based on alternate marks and times.
