Four Wood River High School track and field athletes including new 3200-meter champion Chase Caulkins have qualified for next weekend's State 4A meet in Boise based on their first-day results at the Great Basin Conference meet.
Caulkins (9:44.50) won Wednesday's 3200m final at Twin Falls High School during the first day of the six-school GBC competition.
The Wolverine senior was 25 seconds faster than second-place junior teammate James Paris (10:09.56). Last year in the same meet the tandem placed 4-5 in 10:29.20 and 10:31.90.
Joining Caulkins and Paris as a state qualifier for the 93rd annual Idaho High School State Track and Field Championships May 20-21 at Boise's Bronco Stadium was junior Andrew Pfeiffer (10:20.95).
Pfeiffer sliced 18 seconds off his seeding time and just nipped Jerome's Eddie Escobedo and Canyon Ridge's Dunia Emmanulle in a photo finish for the fourth and final state 3200m berth from the GBC.
Wood River sophomore Cheyenne Swanson also qualified for state Wednesday by placing second in discus with a toss of 109-3, 12 feet farther than her third-place discus result at the conference finals in 2009.
In Wednesday's preliminary heats, Wolverines qualifying for Thursday's finals on the Twin Falls track were senior Grace Lagodich (100m high hurdles), sophomore Lucy Paisley (400m dash) and junior Miles Hendrix (400m dash).
Placing fifth in the 1600m medley relay final was the Hailey team of John Bartoletta, Connor Hesselbacher, Felipe Raygoza and Ben Stout in a time of 3:53.98, nine seconds out of state qualifying time.
