Philomath High School will have an opportunity to do something this season that has never been done in Class 4A girls track and field — win four straight state championships.
“Philomath and three other schools — Gladstone, Astoria and Henley — have all won three consecutive state track and field titles but no one’s won four,” PHS coach Joe Fulton said this week before an afternoon practice at Clemens Field. “So we’re hoping to make history this year.”
The Warriors return more than 80% of the points that they scored at Hayward Field last season.
“We’re deep — we’ve got pretty much everybody back,” Fulton said. “We feel pretty confident that as long as everybody stays healthy — even though our team’s small … we’ve got talent. So hopefully it’ll be enough to win it all.”
Overall, Philomath High’s track and field participation numbers are down from 70 to 61 this year with 32 boys and 29 girls. As Fulton points out, half of those athletes are competing at a junior varsity level, which means he will depend on the varsity runners, jumpers and throwers to participate in multiple events.
Senior Janice Hellesto returns in the sprints and is competing at a championship level in three events.
“She should be one of the favorites to win the 100, 200 and long jump this year and she’s already anchored a state title in the 4-by-1(00),” Fulton said. “There are some big points in her.”
Hellesto won the state title in the 400 as a freshman before coaches discovered that she could go 18 feet in the long jump.
Senior Natalie Dunn will again compete in the 400 and on both relays. Fulton expects her to be among the favorites again this season in the individual events. Last year, she was clearly winning in the 400 finals before falling right before the finish line.
A couple of freshmen have the potential to impact the varsity lineup right away with Kya Bolton in the sprints and Reagan Nuño possibly on the 4-by-100 relay — a decision not yet made by the coach. Heading into the season, the 4-by-100 looks like it will be Bolton, Hellesto, Dunn and senior Petra Hernandez.
In the hurdles, Hernandez and sophomore Annaleise Brown both return. Sophomore Jordyn Hood could be an option but she may choose to focus on the discus, an event that she qualified for state in last year. Nuño and senior twins Brooke and Hanna McDaniel could also factor into the event.
Philomath returns an accomplished group of distance runners that include seniors Adele Beckstead and Melea Lattin along with freshman Cassidy Smart, who placed 10th in the state cross-country meet last fall. Junior Lucy King is another one to watch.
“We have a lot of backups for those runners as well because Reagan might end up being an 800 runner — she ran 2:25 as an eighth grader and that’s better than anybody we’ve got coming back,” Fulton said. “We’ll just see how the season goes for Reagan — she’s such an athlete and track is her favorite sport so she’ll find an event to go to state in.”
In the field events, returning throwers include Hood in the discus and senior Madison Provance in both the shot and discus.
“We’re still trying to build on our throwers,” said Fulton, mentioning the loss of Ahnika Tryon, state champion in the javelin, and discus thrower Madison Juhl to graduation. “We’re still hoping to get a couple more kids out to throw.”
Senior Anneka Steen, state runnerup last season in the high jump, will be back for that event.
“I just talked to her and she’s definitely going to come out and high jump and we’ll see as the season progresses if we can’t get her back in the triple jump,” Fulton said about Steen, who just played last weekend with the state runner-up basketball team and is also playing with the golf team this spring. “She’s placed at state all three years in the triple jump so hopefully by the end of the season she’ll be ready to do that.”
Hanna McDaniel, who was third at state last year in the high jump, also returns. Nuño could enter the picture as well with Fulton planning to have a “jump off” in practice.
Sophomore Hailey Eckhold, a strong athlete with gymnastics in her background, could be a long jump option along with Hellesto.
Junior Ana Candanoza appears on the team’s roster but it hasn’t been determined if she’ll compete this spring. An all-around athlete that contributes significantly to team scoring, Candanoza is sidelined with an injury that may prevent her from participating.
Philomath scored 74 points in last year’s 4A meet to outdistance runner-up Cascade by 23 points. Sixty of those points return — only Tryon in the javelin (first place) and Ellie Morton in the 100 (fifth) were lost out of the individual events. Morton also ran legs on the first-place 4-by-100 and fourth-place 4-by-400 but the team appears to be in exceptional shape with who will be running this season.
Hellesto could be an athlete to watch with the possibility of winning in three individual events. Hellesto actually didn’t qualify for state in the long jump last season after scratching on all of her attempts.
“When a team has an athlete like that, they win the state meet,” Fulton said.
Fulton’s not able to really size up the competition yet until some meet results start coming in.
“I just know we’re going to be the favorites,” he said. “We’ll be the ones with the bull’s-eye on our backs.”
Bushnell back for the boys
For the boys, Warwick Bushnell returns for his senior season a year after placing in the 100, 200 and 400 at the state meet. His times in the 200 and 400 broke school records.
“Warwick is obviously the star of the team,” Fulton said. “He’s sub-50 in the 400, he’s the school-record holder in the 400 and 200, but he’s got a lot of competition unfortunately.”
For example, the defending state champion in the 400 (and third-place medalist in the 200) returns for Marshfield and Crook County and Seaside both have exceptional sprinters that are likely returners.
“Warwick will be the leader; he’ll be the one we build on in the relays and the sprints,” Fulton said.
Junior CD Nuño, who is Bushnell’s cousin, runs in the same events to give the team plenty of depth in the sprints. Junior Rocco De La Rosa, who is also playing baseball this spring, looks like he could contribute. Plus, sophomores Kaden Howard and Bryce Hruska and freshman Dreyton Nuño have speed as well.
Fulton believes he has a group of promising freshmen coming into the program.
“I’m very impressed with our freshmen,” he said. “Now whether or not any of them rise up to be major contributors on varsity their freshman year remains to be seen but they show the potential to rebuild our program after we lose Warwick. But other than that, most of the guys competing for us are underclassmen so we should be pretty good next year.”
Beyond those mentioned, another freshman who has looked good in preseason practice has been Jacoby Babcock. Fulton said he will probably run a longer distance such as the 800 and also take on the javelin.
In the distance events, junior Leo Pausch, junior Lukas Hernandez and sophomore Galen Murch will be back. Pausch placed fifth in last fall’s state cross-country meet, Hernandez was sixth in the 3,000 and ninth in the 1,500 last year and Murch has been training heavily over the winter averaging 50 miles per week.
Brothers Josiah Peters, junior, and Jamin Peters, sophomore, return for the Warriors. Josiah Peters placed third at state last season in the javelin.
“Josiah is one of the best javelin throwers in the state and Jamin is strong … he’ll be focusing probably on the shot and discus,” Fulton said. “We’re pretty good with those two guys in the throwing events.”
Freshmen Samuel Hernandez and Nate Seits could be possible entries in the high jump. Another freshman, Cole Barron, appears to have strong athletic skills as well.
Fulton said he will learn a lot more about the boys in the next few weeks.
“We have so many freshmen and so many new kids that I won’t know until we’ve had two or three meets,” he said. “Do we have other contributors out there that I’m not aware of yet? The boys team is kind of a mystery to me because we’re just starting.”
It actually might be a while before Fulton has a more clear understanding of the talent on the roster. The Elmira Relays are coming up Friday but several athletes won’t be competing with Spring Break coming up and many students not available.
Down the line, Philomath will compete in a few new meets this spring, including the new Spartan Invitational at Corvallis High.
“I tried to put us in a lot of meets with five, six, seven, eight teams because our girls are so good and because Warwick and CD are at that level, to, and they need that competition,” Fulton said. “I don’t like dual meets — it’s kind of a waste of time. I know a lot of teams in our league want them but I’d rather get our kids into the invitationals where they have more competition.”
Philomath will host the Oregon West Conference Championships this season on May 23-24.
