JOYCE — The Crescent girls and boys lost their strangleholds on the North Olympic League track and field championships, losing both for the first time since 2008.
Clallam Bay won the girls championship decisively with 93 points. Crescent placed second with 49 points and Neah Bay was third with 13 points.
“They’ve really banded together and work really well together,” Bruins coach Aaron Burdette said of his team.
Neah Bay won a tightly contested boys title with 66 points. The Loggers boys also took second with 55 points, and Clallam Bay finished third with 44 points.
“It was a great meet for all the teams and athletes involved,” Crescent coach Darrell Yount said.
“Some very solid athletes rose up and performed admirably in some very competitive situations. It was good to see such quality competition at our level [Class 1B].”
Wednesday’s North Olympic League meet featured another round of the budding rivalry between Clallam Bay freshman Molly McCoy and Crescent sophomore Ryan Lester.
McCoy and Lester went head-to-head and finished first and second in three events, with Lester winning the 200-meter dash and long jump and McCoy winning the 300-meter hurdles.
“They’re battling,” Burdette said.
“I’ve never seen Molly get mad until Ryan beat her in the long jump. [Molly] is usually mellow . . . but she was not happy.”
Yount said the 300 hurdles duel was one of the top performances of the day.
McCoy won 51.79 seconds to 52.81 seconds. Those marks rank McCoy fourth in Class 1B and Lester seventh.
“That was just a great race between a couple of really top-level athletes,” Yount said.
McCoy also won the high jump. Teammate Kaylin Signor swept the distance runs (800, 1,600 and 3,200) as the Bruins racked up points in the running events.
Atokena Abe won the 100 and Inga Erickson took the 400, and Clallam Bay won the 4×100 (Chelsey Ritter, Abe, Sami Metcalf and Marissa May), 4×200 (May, Erickson, Mariah Lachester and Ritter) and 4×400 (Erickson, Jeddie Herndon, Jennica Maines and Ritter) relays.
Along with the long jump and 200, Lester also won the 100 hurdles with a time of 17.96 seconds that ranks fourth in the state. Teammate Devanie Christie took second and ran the ninth-best time in 1B.
Christie won the javelin and the triple jump. Her triple jump mark of 33 feet moves her to second place in the state.
Also for Crescent, Meghan Shamp won the discus by over 18 feet, placed second in the shot put and third in javelin.
The Neah Bay girls only win came from Faye Chartraw, who shot to the top of the 1B shot put rankings with a 34-04.
Boys Results
Josiah Greene was the big winner for the Neah Bay boys.
Greene won the 100, 200, 400 and the long jump. His 20-04.5 in the long jump ties him with teammate Elisha Winck for third in Class 1B.
His teammate, Cameron Buzzell, took second to Greene in the 100 and 200 and won the 1,600.
The Red Devils also had wins from Grayson Porter in the high jump and Winck in the triple jump.
Jacob Bailargen and Quinn’Tin March were double winners for Crescent.
Bailargen, a freshman, won the 800 and 1,600. He also was the runner-up to Greene in the 400.
March, one of the top hurdlers on the North Olympic Peninsula, too both hurdles races.
March and Bailargen also ran with the Loggers’ first-place 4×100-meter relay team along with Quenton Wolfer and Travis Walker.
Walker won the javelin, with Wolfer coming in third.
Crescent’s final win came from freshman Wyatt McNeese, who took first in the shot put.
The Clallam Bay boys’ only individual winner was Evan Messinger, who continued his recent outstanding performance in the throwing events by winning the discus (112-04), taking third in the shot put and fifth in the javelin.
“He’s coming into his own a little bit,” Burdette said.
“When he puts it all together, he has a 130-foot to 140-foot [discus] throw in him.”
Yount said a lack of athletes has hobbled the Loggers teams this year, but that doesn’t diminish the accomplishment of this year’s league champions.
“The Neah Bay boys and Clallam Bay girls are talented teams. They have great athletes at the right events in order to bunch together quality team points. Very deserving of the titles,” he said.
Yount said his athletes still have state championship aspirations.
“I am very excited about my own team,” he said.
“While we lack the numbers to compete at this level, we have the right combinations of top-level kids to make a deep run into the postseason.
“I expect our top kids to continue to compete at the top-tier level as we begin our rush toward state.”
The teams will reconvene at Crescent High School next Wednesday for the North Olympic League sub-district meet.