The Philomath High School girls track and field team is sitting in first place through the first day of the Oregon West Conference Championships.
Competing in Newport on Friday, the Warriors won three of the four finals events that were staged — junior Adele Beckstead in the 3,000-meter run, senior Ahnika Tryon in the javelin and junior Anneka Steen in the high jump.
Beckstead had a season-best 10:47.70 to finish first in the 3,000, which was just under 15 seconds faster than the runner-up. Sophomore Lucy King placed fifth in 12:16.16.
Tryon had a throw of 112 feet, 4 inches to win the javelin, which was 6-3 further than the second-place finisher. Steen cleared 5-1 for the victory in the high jump. Teammate Hanna McDaniel, a junior, was the runner-up at 4-10.5
Philomath also picked up 15 points in the triple jump with Steen finishing second (32-5), junior Aspen Russell placing fourth (31-6) and junior Brooke McDaniel placing seventh (28-6.75).
In an unfortunate circumstance, sophomore Ana Candanoza did not finish the 3,000 due to injury.
The girls are sitting in first place with 57 points ahead of Newport’s 42 and Cascade’s 31.
The first day also featured preliminary races in six track events. Qualifying for Saturday’s finals included junior Janice Hellesto in the 100 (first, 12.53) and 200 (first, 26.13), senior Ellie Morton in the 100 (second, 12.83), junior Natalie Dunn in the 400 (first, 58.03), Brooke McDaniel in the 400 (1:06.68), Russell in the 800 (sixth, 2:43.51), junior Kateri Pindell in the 800 (seventh, 2:43.95), freshman Jordyn Hood in the 100 hurdles (third, 18.30), senior Sadie Francis in the 100 hurdles (fourth, 18.37), freshman Annaleise Brown in the 100 hurdles (sixth, 18.79), junior Petra Hernandez in the 300 hurdles (sixth, 52.22) and Hanna McDaniel in the 300 hurdles (seventh, 53.58).
The Philomath boys had a runner-up finish in the 3,000 finals with sophomore Lukas Hernandez coming in with a personal-record time of 9:16.81. Sophomore Leo Pausch finished third in 9:22.07, which was also a PR. Freshman Galen Murch placed seventh in 10:30.51.
Freshman Jamin Peters placed in two events with fourth in the discus with a throw of 110-1 and eighth in the shot put at a distance of 38-5 — both PR marks. The team also picked up points in the pole vault with junior Emmitt Gaskey placing fourth, sophomore Blake Hauck taking fifth and senior Jonathan Doig finishing sixth — each of them clearing 9-9 and getting PRs.
In the team standings, Cascade leads with 74 points, Newport is second at 46, Philomath is third with 34 and Sweet Home is in fourth with 28.
In the prelim races, qualifiers for finals included junior Warwick Bushnell in the 100 (second, 11.36), 200 (fourth, 23.52) and 400 (third, 54.18), sophomore CD Nuno in the 200 (third, 23.33) and 400 (sixth, 55.24), senior Lukas Dunn in the 800 (fourth, 2:10.06), senior Simon King in the 800 (sixth, 2:11.33) and sophomore Luke Arthurs in the 110 hurdles (seventh, 20.18).
Saturday’s action begins at noon with the field events and 1 p.m. with the track events.
