3 nights of blood (literally), sweat (lots), and tears (mostly by Coach Brookshire and Coach Mike) yielded a harvest of 31 individual athletes and 5 relay teams making it to the district meet, 29 total PRs, 14 medal-winning performances, and 1 individual event victory.

Wednesday’s meet began with a huge performance by freshman Carson Naehr in the men’s high jump. Carson began the day seeded 16th at 5’6″, and ended up finishing 8th overall and securing our team’s first berth to the district championship. Competitive response is real — and it is absolutely amazing to see our freshman perform so well! Following the men’s high jump was the women’s high jump, where Courtney Smith won the event with her 5’0″ leap, and freshman Liliana Meissner finished 5th with 4’6″, both qualifying for districts. Congrats to all our floppers getting over higher bars!

Onto the women’s 4x200m relay, where Trinity Cress, Sy’nia Williams, Emma Wijsman, and Sena Pittman threw down a new season’s best of 1:47.43 to finish 3rd overall and make the district meet line up. Our milers were next, with Connor and Brennen Rickey first running in the boy’s race. Connor ended up finishing 4th overall — rebreaking his own freshman record — in 4:24.52, and Brennen ran to an 11th overall finish in 4:32.15, both making the district lineup. Kate Yahn took on the girl’s 1600m, finishing 8th overall with a 5:06.53 and making the cut for the next week. An amazing showing for our Wednesday crew, setting us up for more success as we move forward!

While Wednesday brought sun, Thursday brought a familiar rain. After making the finals in the 110m hurdles on Wednesday, Sebastian Powers and Toren Garcia started our Thursday off strong finishing 2nd (16.62) and 5th (17.14) overall — finishing in the top 6 and automatically making it to the district meet. Our 100m girls took to the track next, where Sy’nia Williams and Emma Wijsman finished 3rd and 4th, respectively, both with shiny new PRs of 13.12 and 13.08 (run in prelims on Wednesday).

On the field side of things, we saw freshman jumping phenom Domfo Abekah take 3rd overall in the triple jump (32’7″), which was a 5″ PR over the mark set two weeks ago. Senior Mercedes Tinder took on the women’s shotput, finishing 2nd overall with a throw of 33’11”. Both of these athletes finished atop the podium, congrats to both!

To start Friday’s finals, we began with the women’s pole vault, where Rebekah Oberlander punched her ticket to districts with a vault of 9’6″ to finish 5th. On the men’s side, Dexter Zablocki blew his PR out of the water, finishing 3rd with a newly minted PR of 11’6″. In the women’s javelin, Mercedes Tinder finished 3rd and advanced to districts, while both KJ Strunk (3rd, 151’8″) and Wyatt Chollman (10th, 139’2″, PR) threw to qualify for districts. An awesome showing for our pole vault and javelin crews to start the day off strong!

Our boy’s 4x100m relay of Ethan Blazer, Joseph Talluto, Ian Campbell, and Tanner Geraci finished 7th overall with a time of 45.31, advancing to the district championship, while our girl’s team of Anna Boone, Sy’nia Williams, Emma Wijsman, and Daytona Crowe matched their earlier 4x200m performance with another 3rd place finish, this time in 50.97. In the 300m hurdles, Toren Garcia finished 2nd in a time of 43.62, just off his PR he set during the prelim of the event on Thursday (43.02). Senior Kiera Hanson also medaled in the 300m hurdles, finishing 3rd with a PR (49.39). Joining Kiera at the district meet will be senior Anna Boone, who finished 10th overall in 51.66.

To the men’s 800m, where Caleb Murphy shattered his old PR of 2:00.53 with a blazing 1:57.88 to finish 7th overall and make it to districts. A frequently mentioned name in this blog post, Sy’nia Williams and Sena Pittman both stormed to 3rd and 5th place finishes in the 200m final, both locking down their districts trip. Then came the men’s and women’s 3200m, where Brennen Rickey (6th – 9:55.49, PR), Benjamin Konopka (7th – 9:58.20. PR), and Jerald Imai-Takemura (8th – 10:02.77) all secured spots to districts, while Kate Yahn (5th, 11:03.02, PR), Jane Harig (11:07.89, PR), and Liv Jensen (11th, 11:34.38, PR) will join them.

Final two events of the night were the men’s and women’s 4x400m. On the men’s side, Greyson Pike, Connor Rickey, Josh Delgadillo, and Caleb Murphy threw down a 6 second season’s best, running 3:30.51, all of them achieving personal bests for their relay split. This blazing time was good for 3rd overall, and is 9th ranked time in 4A state — this bodes extremely well for next week’s district championship. The women’s team of Sena Pittman, Daytona Crowe, Sophia Mydlil, and Anna Boone also improved the season’s best by 7 seconds, running 4:16.76, good for 5th overall.

As the team scores were totaled, the men’s team finished 7th and the women’s team finished 4th. All complete results can be found here.

Looking ahead to next week, the Issaquah Eagles will be travelling north to Lake Stevens HS both Wednesday 5/18 (field events begin at 5, track at 6) and Friday 5/20 (field events begin at 5:30, track at 6:30) to compete in the WesKing Bi-District state qualifier. From that meet, the top 5 athletes in each event will be advanced to the state meet (5/26-28), as well as anyone who hits the autoqualifying mark in the meet’s competition.

It was all around an amazing meet for all of our athletes, and we are very excited to see some more incredible performances next week! Until then, Fly Eagles, Fly!