Riding gold-medal performances by senior Mette Ericsson and freshman Katelyn Peterson, the Camas County High School girls' track and field team captured the third-place team trophy Saturday at the State 1A meet in Boise.
The Mushers (55.5 points) scored 32.5 of their points in field events led by Swedish exchange student Ericsson (a winning 9-6 pole vault) and Peterson (the best high jump at 5-2). Ericsson added eight more points with her silver medal in the 1A long jump (16-2).
Camas County also broke its school record by placing second in the medley relay (1:57.32) with seniors Lindsey Peterson, ToniAnne Wear, Hailey Gregory and Mollie McLam. They improved their seed by over a second to finish behind Lapwai (1:55.98) and ahead of Mackay.
When the dust settled, the Raft River Trojans won the 31-school 1A girls' meet with 96 points for their first state girls' championship since 2001 and their sixth overall. Senior Sally Hansen led the way with gold medals in the 100-meter, 200m and 400m dashes, her 200m time of 25.68 a new class record.
Meanwhile, the Carey School girls' track team got 14 individual points from junior Amy Ellsworth and finished eighth in the team standings with 28 points. Carey's 4x400m relay of Nicki Gomez, Kelsey Green, Ellsworth and Micaela Adamson was third (4:22.09).
Ellsworth was delighted with her personal-best 2:24.68 time for second place in the 800m run behind Culdesac's Taylor Hewett (2:22.28). As the defending 1600m champion, Ellsworth (5:41.70) improved her seed time by nearly 11 seconds to finish third, again right behind second-place Hewett.
All in all, it was a memorable state meet for the Musher and Panther girls as they capped their careers, in the case of the six Musher senior girls, or showed promise for the future, as was the case with Carey freshmen Micaela Adamson and Gomez.
Adamson ran to fifth place in the 400m dash (1:02.04) and took eighth in the 200m (27.88). Showing no fear, Gomez raced to sixth place in the tough 300m intermediate hurdles (50.62). Both improved their preliminary times by substantial margins, Adamson by 1.20 seconds in the 400m and Gomez by .36 seconds in the intermediates.
Here are the other Camas County point performances during a meet in which the Mushers held the first-day lead, 40.5 to 36 over Raft River:
4th places—Katelyn Peterson 300m intermediate hurdles (50.41) and Mollie McLam pole vault (8-0).
5th place—Lindsey Peterson 100m dash (27.34).
6th place—4x100m relay with Lindsey Peterson, ToniAnne Wear, Hailey Gregory and Mollie McLam (54.09).
Ellingson takes discus gold
Despite struggling with an abdomenal injury most of the season, Camas County junior Jeff Ellingson came into the State 1A track meet with the best discus qualifying throw of all 16 small-school discus men.
Ellingson unleashed his best throw of the season, 149-6, on his first throw at Bronco Stadium and won his first-ever state discus gold medal by over five feet. His 10 points plus three more for sixth place in shotput (44-4) helped Camas to 11th place in team ranks (25).
Musher junior Mickenzie Boggs, the district triple jump king, improved his seeding distance and finished second at state with a jump of 40-7.75 feet. Another Musher junior, Derek Walker, was fifth in triple jump with a distance of 39-6.75.
In only its third year of operation, Liberty Charter School of Nampa won the 1A boys' team title with 62 points, ahead of Oakley (59). It's the second straight year a charter school has won the 1A boys' championship, with Coeur d'Alene Charter winning boys and girls' titles in 2008.
CDA Charter moved up to 2A this year and finished second to the Nampa Christian girls, 132 to 75. It was Nampa Christian's fifth consecutive State 2A girls' title 11th overall. The Nampa Christian boys made it a sweep, taking their first 2A boys' crown since 1982.
Other state champions were:
State 5A: The Eagle girls (first title since 2002) by a 90-81 score over Twin Falls, and the Capital of Boise boys (first title since 1985). And in State 3A: Earning their first-ever state track titles were the Buhl girls and Kimberly boys.
They staged a heated race in the State 1A 800-meter run finals Saturday morning at Boise’s Bronco Stadium—and then walked together and talked together on the blue turf while cooling down and getting a cool drink. Defending 800m champion Taylor Hewett (left), a Culdesac sophomore, repeated as champion with a time of 2:22.28, three seconds better than last year and four seconds slower than the class record, while second-place Amy Ellsworth of Carey (right) ran the best 800m of her life in 2:24.68. A junior, Ellsworth’s state qualifying time in 800m had been 12 seconds slower. Photo by Jeff Cordes
