DUVALL — A little more than two weeks from now, Archbishop Murphy’s Kristi Bartz was expected to challenge for a 2A state championship in the 800 meters. Wednesday’s 2A Sub-District meet at Cedarcrest High School was to be the first of several steps in the postseason to accomplish that goal.
Instead, the lane Bartz would have occupied in Wednesday’s qualifying race for Friday’s 800-meter final was empty — a way to honor the senior, who passed away this past Saturday.
Bartz was remembered with a moment of silence prior to the meet and several teams wore ribbons in her honor. Archbishop Murphy’s athletes wore shirts that read “run4Kristi” and all of them had painted a heart with the initials K.B. on either their hand or face.
Leaving her lane empty was just another way to honor a girl who was so well respected, not just by her own teammates, but by the athletes at the other schools as well.
“Kristi has had a big impact on this league through her years of running and jumping and we were trying to find a different way to honor her besides the ribbons and besides the moment of silence,” Cedarcrest head coach and meet director Bruce McDowell said.
Lakewood’s Britney Albro is used to lining up next to Bartz, but on Wednesday she lined up next to an empty lane. Lakewood head coach Jeff Sowards said Albro took the news of Bartz’s passing particularly hard.
“Britney wants to run against the best always and Kristi was one of those,” he said.
Bartz had placed second in state in the 800 meters in each of the past two seasons, but Archbishop Murphy head coach Paul Turner said early in the season that this was the year Bartz was finally going to bring home the championship.
“Not a doubt about it,” he said. “Every single workout, every single race was geared toward that. When we ran a race we had very specific goals and very specific things that we were accomplishing with the whole point of going to the state meet and winning it.”
Albro went on to win Wednesday’s first preliminary heat in the 800 and advance to Friday’s final where she is the favorite to win and advance to the district tournament. Albro said she will keep Bartz in mind as she continues to race the remainder of the season.
“I’m going to run for her until the end because I think that she needs to live on,” Albro said. “I really want to do it for her because I’m going to miss her a lot.”
Wednesday was most difficult on the teammates Bartz left behind. Many of them fought back tears throughout the afternoon and competing just four days after her death was conflicting.
“In some ways it’s really cathartic and I think the kids needed it, and in some ways it’s the most difficult thing any of us have ever done, myself included,” Turner said. “Kristi was a huge part of our team and was an inspirational force behind all of us.”
All of Wednesday’s running events were preliminaries with the exception of the 1,600 meters — an event Bartz would have been competing in and most likely won.
Lakewood’s Lilly Whitehead won the race in 5 minutes, 30.59 seconds and her teammate Keely Hall was second in 5:31.05. Bartz had the seventh-best time in the state this season at 5:18.82, a mark she set just last Thursday at the Cascade Conference championships, establishing an Archbishop Murphy school record.
Archbishop Murphy’s Lindsey Dorney came in third with a season-best time of 5:34.06.
Dorney’s time came close to a personal best and was her best time of the season by about 14 seconds. The Wildcats had three other competitors in the race — Teresa Barron, Alaina Hines and Mackenzie Ryan — and all three recorded personal best times.
“I can speak for my distance girls that just ran that mile, they were thinking about Kristi that whole time,” a tearful Turner said.
Turner said all four girls asked him to be particularly encouraging during the race so that they could honor their teammate. Barron hasn’t raced much during the past two weeks because of an injury, but she didn’t let that stop her from finishing fifth in 5:38.65. Turner said he could see early in the race that she was still bothered by the injury.
“I saw it 600 meters into the race,” he said. “She was fighting from that moment. She fought for 1,000 meters and she still PR’d.”
Sowards had the two winners in the race, but called the race the four Archbishop Murphy girls ran “a good tribute.”
Wednesday was a good day for Lakewood, which had not only the top two finishers in the 1,600 girls final, but the top four finishers in the 1,600 boys final. Alex Cooper finished first, Douglas Davis was second, James Hafner was third and Anthony Meza was fourth.
Sowards said all of the teams competed with a heavy heart, but competing tenaciously as Bartz did was the best way to remember her.
“It’s not easy,” he said. “What I told the kids is that the best way that they can honor her memory is to do that through their performances today.”
If anything was apparent on Wednesday it was Bartz touched many lives in a brief amount of time.
“You have people that you are going to run across in your life that are just special people,” Turner said. “People that just have something. She was one of those kids that she was going to do amazing things in her life. If she was a track athlete or a business person or a teacher or whatever it is, she would be amazing at it.
“That’s the kind of person she was.”
2A Sub-District Meet
At Cedarcrest H.S.
Wednesday’s Finals
BOYS
1,600—Alex Cooper (Lakewood) 4:36.09; Long jump—Brett Bustad (L) 20-7; Discus—Alec Burbee (L) 142-1; Pole vault—Matthew Hinline (Cedarcrest) 12-0.
GIRLS
1,600—Lilly Whitehead (L) 5:30.59; High jump—Yareli Ochoa (L) 4-10; Triple jump—Courtney Ball (L) 32-2; Discus—Gillian Grant (Archbishop Murphy) 93-5.
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