The Camas girls team ran and jumped to a bi-district title Saturday, putting themselves in position to chase a state championship next week.
Camas scored 104.5 points in the two-day West Central District meet at Mount Tahoma High School in Tacoma, outpacing second-place Columbia River’s 72 points.
The West Central meet determines spots for the state meet, which runs Thursday through Saturday, also at Mount Tahoma. The top eight finishers in each event from Saturday’s meet qualified for state.
Hurdler Sara Slayton was among many athletes who advanced for the Camas girls. She won the 300-meter event in 45.48 seconds, and was fourth in the 100 hurdles.
Megan Kelley won the 400 meters for the Papermakers and finished second in the 200 and the long jump while contributing to a second-place finish in the 1,600 relay. In the 1,600 meters, freshman Camille Parsons was second and Kayla Blackford was fifth for Camas.
In other Clark County highlights from the 3A meet:
• Kristina Owsinski of Prairie won the girls pole vault with a mark of 10 feet, 9 inches. Owsninski led a dominating performance for Greater St. Helens League schools, as Columbia River’s Jennifer DeBellis was second and Union’s Alexandra Uhrich was third.
• Taryn Willie also contributed to Camas’ team title, finishing fourth in the long jump and fifth in the triple jump.
• While two Camas runners advanced to state in the 1,600, two Columbia River runners joined them. Alison Clark finished third, one day after winning the 3,200, and Sarah Bobbe was sixth.
• In the shot put, Prairie’s Johna McEllrath was second and River’s Anna Adamko was third. Each of them advanced to state in all three throwing events — javelin, discus, and shot put.
Class 3A boys bi-district track and field — Jason Jones of Camas and Blake Bier of Prairie continued their rivalry in the pole vault, both finishing with meet-best marks of 14-6. Bier has a season-best of 14-10 while Jones’ is 14-6 — the best marks in the state in Class 3A.
Union’s Jacob Troupe dominated the high jump competition, clearing 6-7 and the runner-up had a mark of 6-2.
Jon Lawson of Prairie won the shot put by nearly three feet and finished second in the discus.
Union’s Kinsley Ojukwu, one week after sustaining a hamstring injury and barely qualifying for the bi-district meet, won the 100 meters in 11.24 seconds. He also advanced to state in the triple jump.
Kyle Boe of Columbia River was third in the 1,600. He also won the 3,200 at the meet.
Mikey Lauritzen of Camas advanced to state in both the 110 hurdles and the javelin, finishing third in each event.
Boys tennis
3A bi-district — Union’s Alex Wallace beat Mitchell Thorp of Kennedy 6-0, 6-2 to capture the Class 3A bi-district singles championship.
Wallace won all of his matches in straight sets, including a 7-5, 7-6 win over last year’s state runner-up David Schuster of North Thurston.
Union freshman Marcus Kwon bounced back from a first-round loss to place seventh and earn a trip to state.
Union’s doubles team of Tommy Foster and Mark Bright lost in the semis before beating Capital’s Luke and Issac Olson 6-3, 6-0 for third place.
Also, Union’s Garett Speyer and Andrew Bagherpour won two consolation matches to reach the seventh/eighth-place match, but had to forfeit because Speyer was participating in the state baseball tournament. However, the top eight entrants from the tournament earn a trip to state, which will be held Friday and Saturday in Vancouver.
Union won the boys team title.
Girls tennis
4A bi-district playoff — Mountain View’s district champion doubles team of Chaeran Kim and Jenna Grillo booked a spot in the state tournament with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 victory over Newport’s Tomomi Matsushita and Emily Shavers.
However, that’s all the 4A Greater St. Helens League advanced to state out of the playoff Saturday at the Vancouver Tennis Center.
District singles champ Brittany Ellingsen of Skyview battled into a third set despite a back injury before falling to Skyline’s Alisa VanGrunsven 7-5, 4-6, 6-3.
Battle Ground’s Jenica Vukanovich fell 6-0, 6-0 to Newport’s Amie Vo.
In doubles, Mountain View’s Shari Gray and Julie Christen, the district tournament runner’s up, fell in three sets to Kelly Watanabe and Jess Lund 2-6, 6-1, 6-3.
The 4A tournament is Friday and Saturday at Kennewick.
3A bi-district — The 3A bi-district tournament in Tacoma turned out to be a carbon copy of the District 4 tournament last week in Vancouver.
In the singles bracket, Union’s Victoria Tam defeated Christine Wang of Columbia River 6-0, 1-6, 6-0 for the singles championship in a rematch of last week’s district title match.
In doubles, Christina Le and Megan Carter of Union beat Julie Piboonvaranggoon and Lauren Wetzel of Columbia River 6-2, 6-0 for the title in another district rematch.
The Union girls took the team title with 20 points, followed closely by Columbia River with 18.
2A district — Hockinson’s Mackenzie McWilliams earned her third trip to the state tournament with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Lauren Salberg of Mark Morris in the title match.
McWilliams placed fifth at state last year.
The 2A state tournament is Friday and Saturday at the Nordstrom Center at the University of Washington campus in Seattle.
