On a day highlighted by the weather cycling between rain, sun, hail, and just about everything in between, the Eagles and Spartans met at Issaquah Stadium to participate in our first home dual meet of the season. Regardless of the “uncontrollables,” our athletes put up amazing performances across the board.

In our field event performances, the pole vault saw both Dexter Zablocki and Rebekah Oberlander take home top honors, with jumps of 10′ and 9’6″, respectively. Senior Mercedes Tinder continues to shine in the throws, heaving a 31’2.5″ in the shot put for the individual victory. Sophomore Sebastian Powers flew to a 17’10.5″, a mere 5″ off his PR in the sideways rain, to win the long jump, while junior Courtney Smith won with a leap of 4’8″, continuing her high jump campaign. Amazing efforts for many others, as the field events alone produced 18 of our TEAM’s total personal bests.

For the second week in a row, the 4x200m relay TEAM–this time with Anna Boone, Greta Cavotta, Emma Wijsman and Sy’nia Williams–took home the win in 1:50.99, a new season best by over a second. This performance moves them to 10th in the 4A state rankings. The tandem of Emma Wijsman and Sy’nia Williams sprinted to a 1-2 finish, respectively, in the 100m dash. Continuing on to the 1600m, Jerry Imai-Takemura ran a season’s best 4:40.34, opening up in the last 300m and making his finishing move count. The girl’s 4x100m relay group of Anna Boone, Sy’nia Williams, Emma Wijsman and Trinity Cress also claimed a TEAM victory.

Toren Garcia continues his 300m hurdle dominance, this week running 45.02. He currently still sits as the top hurdler in Kingco AS A FRESHMAN. Speaking of freshman, Connor Rickey–this week taking the 800m for a spin–ran 2:01.33, showing his incredible range over the last 3 weeks and maintaining his undefeated streak. This was also a 14 second personal best for Connor in the event, and puts him at 9th in the 4A state rankings. To also mention was senior Josh Delgadillo who finished 2nd to Connor Rickey, in a time of 2:02.44, his first time running the 800m event. The future is bright for these two distance stars! Emma Wijsman (familiar name in this post) completed her evening by taking home the victory in the 200m in a time of 27.91, with her teammates freshman Sena Pittman, Sy’nia Williams, and Anna Boone finishing 2-3-4 behind her.

In the 3200m, sophomore Brennen Rickey opened up his season in a dominating fashion, running a solo 10:01.97 effort, with freshmen Henry Tait and Alex Yahn finishing 2-3 behind him. All of this was done through cycling rain and hail. Brennen’s performance sits him at 4th in Kingco. An incredible effort from our boys, but our girls put on a show as well. Junior Kate Yahn led our girl’s 3200m with a time of 11:10.30, putting her at 3rd in the state in this event. Our girl’s contingent of freshman Liv Jensen and sophomore Clara Tubbs finished 2-3 to Kate, running incredible TEAM races and finishing strong.

The night’s running events closed out with the 4x400m relay, with our boy’s team of Evan Barnes, Connor Rickey, Greyson Pike, and Josh Delgadillo running a 5 second season’s best (set last week) of 3:40.66, sitting us at 2nd in Kingco.

With all of these amazing individual performances by our athletes, there are so many that we could highlight. After it was all said and done, Issaquah Eagles produced 107 personal bests on the day — an amazing feat in the weather that was given to us. Congrats to all the Eagles that ran/jumped/threw yesterday — there is more fun and more personal bests to come! Full results for the day are linked here.

Issaquah will travel to Mt Si HS on Wednesday April 6th, and our varsity contingent will travel to Bellingham for the Birger Solberg Invitational, hosted by Sehome HS, on Saturday April 9th. Thank you for reading — fly Eagles, fly!

Issy girls bring one home! 

Issaquah track and field travelled north to take on the Eastlake Wolves in the first dual meet of the season, with the boys taking home 8 individual victories and the girls taking home 9 individual victories and the TEAM win for the day. 

Starting with our field athletes, sophomore KJ Strunk won the javelin in commanding fashion, winning by over 25 feet. Not to be eclipsed by senior Mercedes Tinder, heaving her victories in the shotput and discus by more than 29 feet between the two events. Junior Courtney Smith and freshman Carson Naehr flopped new personal records of 5’0” and 5’2” respectively to win the high jump, while senior Rebekah Oberlander vaulted a stellar 9’6” for the pole vault win. This puts Courtney at tied for 3rd and Rebecca at 7th in 4A. The horizontal jumps were also won by the Eagles, with Joseph Talluto (long jump), Benjamin Laframboise (triple jump), and Presley Boettcher (long AND triple jump) bringing home the glory. Reminder: Track AND Field has 2 parts, and we already know our Eagles are flocking on the field! 

Onto the running events, girl’s 4×200 featured lots of purple and gold, as our A and B teams duked it out for top spot, finishing a narrow 2 seconds apart — proving our true depth in our sprinting events. Our very own Ethan Blazer threw down in the 100m, winning the event in 11.81. This was a .7 second improvement from last year. Our boy’s and girl’s 4x100m of Shane Olsen, Sebastian Lorete, Sebastian Powers and Joseph Talluto and Emma Wijsman, Sy’nia Williams, Anna Boone, and Daytona Crowe gave real TEAM-inspired performances, narrowly edging off Eastlake in both races.  This places the boy’s team currently at 8th in the state and the girl’s at 4th, an there’s still tons of room to improve and grow.

Our freshman rising star hurdler Toren Garcia shaved a near 3 seconds off his time in the 300m hurdles, passing his competitors in the final 2 hurdles to take home the W. His time of 44.85 currently ranks him at 10th in 4A, an amazing accomplishment this early in the season.

To the end of the meet, we saw standout performances by freshman Connor Rickey and sophomore Jane Harig in the 3200m. Both of them worked from the front, running incredibly smart races, and both walked away with amazing PRs for this early in the season. Connor’s 9:56.54 currently stands at 5th in 4A and the fastest overall freshman regardless of division, and Jane’s 12:02.63 currently stands as 7th in 4A . An incredible effort by these two that will set them up well for the rest of the season.

In the end, Issaquah girls brought home the TEAM victory, winning 74 to 71 over Eastlake. While not the ultimate goal, the TEAM victory an awesome cherry on top for the day.

With so many other efforts that showed true grit, teamwork, and heart, I could go on and on. Many other athletes did not necessarily win their event, but did take home personal wins as personal bests, as we saw a staggering 165 personal bests. An amazing feat that we look to build off of in the future. Official results here.

Looking ahead, we have our first home dual meet against Skyline on March 30th, events begin at 4:30.