Runners go the distance

Exhausting, dominating and desperately needed. This is what it was to be a distance runner on the South Whidbey High School boys and girls track teams in Duvall Thursday.

There was Falcon senior Nancy Godsey, who pulled off the rarely-attempted distance triple, winning the 800-meter run and taking second place in both the 1,600 and the 3,200 on her way to scoring a team-high 15 points. The 1,600 brought junior Mary Bakeman to the fore, making her move in the final 200 meters to get around Godsey to win the event in a season-best time of 5 minutes, 37.7 seconds. And in the 3,200, sophomore Katy Gordon took her first victory of the year, outlasting a taxed Godsey to cross the line in 12:33.8.

Winning in the long run for the Falcon boys was junior JD Peters, who ran away from the field in the 3,200 to win in a time of 11:00.2.

Against speedy teams from Sultan, Archbishop Murphy and Cedarcrest, all the point-winning contributions from the distance runners were needed as even the best Falcon sprinters faded into the field, or did not take the track at all. The girls were second-place finishers, less than 10 points behind meet champion Sultan. Twenty nine of the points they scored came from distance events. The boys, completely outmanned by Archbishop Murphy, still managed to trump Cedarcrest and Sultan, albeit by just a few points.

Still, other top results were critical in the meet. For the girls, junior Sarah Olson was the top Falcon sprinter, taking second in the 100. In the 4x100 and 4x200 relays, South Whidbey was again and again the runner-up. Other second-place finishers were freshman Lauren Sandri in the long jump (14 feet, 10 inches), freshman Annie Doran in her debut triple jump (29-8), and sophomore Caitilyn Larmore in the javelin (82-3).

Senior Kimery Hern was the blowout winner of the day, tossing the discus off a no-spin throw in heavy rain to a 113-foot stadium record to take the event.

Winners for the boys were freshman Hunter Hawkins in the 400 (1:04.8), freshman Alex Helpenstell in the 100 (11.5 seconds), and senior Jason Gilberts in the javelin (158-2).

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