“You’re going to the show! You’re going to the show!” one of them yelled at Lang.

The show is state, a meet Lang knows nothing about. The Heritage senior has never run track until this season, which for the local competition, looks like it’s a good thing.

Lang was unpressured in winning both sprints at bi-district, a state qualifying meet that includes the best track and field competitors from the Greater St. Helens League and KingCo Conference. Lang cruised in the 100, winning in a time of 10.82 seconds. A few hours later, he dusted a nine-man 200 field, beating runner-up Andy Palmer of Inglemoor by more than five meters.

Though he’s a newcomer to the sport, Lang appears to be improving at the right time. He shaved more than a tenth of a second off his winning times from last week’s district meet. If Lang continues to better himself this week at state, he’ll be in the mix for at least one state title.

What Lang has heard about state is that “it’s crazy. It’s all new to me.” So how will he prepare for the track meet of his life?

“Pray,” Lang said.

Lang was one of four winners among the local boys during the second day of bi-districts. Others were Evergreen’s Brad Wall, Heritage’s Jacob Wilson, and Skyview’s 400 relay. Wall won the 400, while Wilson took the javelin.

The top four from each event at the bi-districts qualify for state, which takes place Friday and Saturday at Pasco High School. Four Clark County boys earned state berths in two events each: Lang (100, 200), Wall (200, 400), Heritage’s Donavan Cunningham (discus, shot), and Prairie’s Taylor Schmidt (pole vault, 110 hurdles).

Inglemoor won the team title with 88 points. The top Clark County school in the 17-team meet was Heritage, which placed third with 73 points.

Unlike Lang, Wall has been to state. He’d like to come away with a better experience than a year ago, when he failed to advance past the 400 preliminaries.

This year, Wall is thinking about more than the state finals. He believes he has a chance to win, which is what he did at bi-district with a stirring stretch run to collar pacesetter Trevor Roush of Juanita.

Roush blasted out to a big lead on the backstretch, an advantage that held up coming out of the final turn. But the relentless Wall ran him down during the final 50 meters, and ended up winning comfortably, in a time of 49.3 seconds.

“The main thing today was to get to state,” Wall said. “But winning is definitely a cool thing.”