PREP TRACK: King’s boys capture second straight title

TACOMA — By a margin of 50 points, the King’s boys track team wrapped up the 1A state championship for the second year in a row with a score of 96. Coupeville came in fourth with 35.5 points.

“We only lost two runners from last year’s state team,” said King’s coach Dante Gouge. “We knew we had a lot of points coming back and we just needed to come back and perform well and we did.”

King’s junior Josh Fuller, who nursed a hamstring injury for much of the season, earned a first-place finish in the 400-meter dash with a time of 49.70 seconds. He finished second in the 200.

“He battled injuries all year but he got healthy at the right time,” said Gouge.

King’s won its first state title in the 400 relay when Jean Blatchford, Bryan Ayers, Fuller and Tony Yakovich finished in 43.28 seconds.

Also for King’s, Sean Brugger and Austin Dean finished second in the 110 and 300 hurdles, respectively.

Coupeville’s Kyle King ran the 3,200-meter in nine minutes, 43.24 seconds to successfully defend his state title from 2007.

1A girls: At Tacoma, Olivia Thomas of King’s earned a pair of state titles, one in the 800-meter run (2 minutes, 19.93 seconds) and the other in the 1,600 (5:14.53). Coupeville’s Erin Hickey finished in second in the discus with a throw of 102 feet, 6 inches.

2A boys: At Tacoma, Devon Smith of Lakewood earned a third-place finish in the 400-meter dash with a time of 48.80 seconds. Teammate Terrance Ordonez finished fifth in the 800.
2A girls: At Tacoma, South Whidbey won the state title in the 800-meter relay with a meet-record time of 1 minute, 44.97 seconds. Sarah Schireman of Archbishop Murphy finished second in the 300 hurdles (45.64) and fifth in the 100 hurdles (15.
2B girls: At Cheney, Shoreline Christian’s Sarah Daigneault ran the 100-meter hurdles in 15.95 seconds to finish third. She finished sixth in the 400 with a time of 1:02.65.

1B boys: At Cheney, Brian Young of Grace Academy finished first in the high jump (6 feet, 3 inches) to add a second state title to the long jump win he posted on Friday.

1B girls: At Cheney, North Sound Christian’s Myisha Valentine earned three state titles and was the anchor runner on the winning 800-meter relay team (1 minute, 51.04 seconds). She won the 100 (12.74), 200 (25.98) and 400 (58.40) to help North Sound place second in the team standings. Grace Academy came in third in the 800 relay with a time of 1:55.84.