Lady Panthers sprint to first place in first meet of junior high postseason

Published 6:00 pm Saturday, May 27, 2006

POULSBO — The rain cleared just in time for Poulsbo and Kingston’s junior high athletes to put on a show May 23 at the North Kitsap High School Stadium as NK hosted the junior high sub-district track meet.

Despite the semifinal, win-or-go-home mentality, the junior high level is not as pressure-filled as in high school postseason.

“They still know they are competing to get to the next meet, but as a coach you don’t feel that pressure of a high school state track event,” said KJH coach Tony Chisholm. “If we don’t feel the pressure, the kids don’t feel it and I think that’s a good thing.”

With that kind of relaxed atmosphere in place, junior high athletes from five area schools came out to compete against themselves, their best times and the competition for a spot in the junior high finals.

For the Poulsbo Lady Panthers, the drive to move on pushed athletes to incredible feats as they put together blue sweeps in the 60M and 100M dashes, all three relays and all three throwing events.

“It was incredible,” said PJH coach Joe Power, noting Siara Byers’ and Alison Howe’s one-two finishes on the short track. “I think what makes it for all of us is to see the excitement on the kids’ faces when they succeed.”

Byers and Howe were beaming after finishing in first and second in both the 60M and 100M dashes. Byers took first in both with times of 8.05 seconds (60M) and 13.02 seconds (100M) while Howe was right on her heels at 8.39 seconds and 13.20 seconds, respectively.

In the other individual sprint event, the 200M, PJH’s Melissa Kunold and Caelyn Colyer sprinted to second and third place while John Sedgwick’s Alissa Ablitt took first by nearly a second.

In the girls’ distance events, Kingston Lady Cavalier Ruby Roberts dominated the afternoon as she took first place in both the 400M and 1600M runs.

“She just improves every meet, and her potential is out the roof!” Chisholm said of the eighth grader. “She is so talented at such a young age, and now she expects to win all the time … I told her, ‘That’s how great athletes are thinking, you shouldn’t expect anything but.’”

In the 4x100M, 4x200M and 4x400M girls’ relays, three talented PJH teams expected nothing less than first place.

And that’s what they got.

The Poulsbo 4x400M championed the five-team field by three seconds with a time of 4:44.29 while the 4X100M team won by a margin of two seconds with a time of 54.97 seconds.

In contrast in the 4x200M race, the Lady Panthers had to earn the victory as the race came down to a dogfight between Kingston and Poulsbo. The Panthers crossed the finish line at 2:01.29 as Kingston came in at 2:01.85.

“This group knows that hard work is gonna get you to the next level, they built that solid ground of understanding that you’ve got to compete,” Chisholm said of what has been learned over the course of the 2006 season.

Wrapping up the sub-district meet for the Lady Panthers, Michelle Lloyd secured two first place performances in the shot put and the turbo jav, while Kelle Taplin tossed the discus 80-07 feet to complete the blue sweep of the throws.

In the field for the boys, Kingston’s Alex Van Deen hurled to first place in both the discus and shot events, helping the Cavs to a second place overall team finish. While Poulsbo’s Glenn Runnels championed the turbo javelin with a monster throw of 157-00 feet.

Van Deen, coming off of a school record-setting performance in the final week of the regular season, also finished in front of the field by more than 10 feet with a discus throw of 140-07 feet.

On the boys’ track, Kingston’s Taylor Chisholm, Poulsbo’s Alex Flores and Marcus Whitman’s Ryan Williams battled for the 60M title. Williams ran to a time of 7.42 seconds while Chisholm and Flores were nearly stride for stride in excitement, turning in times of 7.77 and 7.78 seconds for second andthird place.

All athletes who finished top eight in their respective events at the sub-district meet will be moving on to the junior high finals which will be at 3 p.m. June 1 at Silverdale Stadium.

The finals will give athletes the experience of competing on their own as coaches will not be allowed on the field.

“It finally gives us a chance as coaches to sit back and watch what we have done all season trying to teach them,” Chisholm said. “It’s a good feeling to know that they’ve grown up in three months.”