The heroic feats — feets? — of Randy Jones came through for the Juanita High boys’ track team once again on Thursday, May 26, as the Rebel 4×400 relay team qualified for the state finals at the WIAA Class 3A championships at Mt. Tahoma Stadium in Tacoma.
Juanita finished less than a half-second ahead of Bellevue for the eighth spot in Saturday’s final round. Jones, who dove across the finish line at the district meet to qualify the team for state, combined with Brighton Maughan, Michael Gengo and Noah Kells to finish in 3 minutes, 27.87 seconds.
The 3A boys’ 4×400 meter relay finals are scheduled for just past 4 p.m. on Saturday afternoon.
Juanita’s Nathan Casebier had one of the top times in the 110 meter hurdle preliminary round, running the event in 14.83 second to tie for the second-best mark among 3A runners on Thursday.
In the girls’ javelin competition, Lake Washington junior finished third overall with a career-best throw of 132 feet, 3 inches. Juanita junior Natayah Bauer finished 12th overall with a mark of 105 feet, 11 inches.
The Juanita girls’ 4×200 meter relay team finished 10th in the preliminaries on Thursday, failing to qualify for the final round.
Juanita senior Natalie Kalda finished 14th overall in the 100 meter hurdle prelims and did not make finals.
Both Lake Washington and Juanita will be busy on Friday for the second day of the state meet.
Kang senior Alex Guerrero will compete in the boy’ discus throw, while junior Brandon Gockel will represent Lake Washington in the boys’ javelin.
Jones will have two events: finals for the 3A boys’ long jump, and preliminaries for the 300 meter hurdles.
Juanita’s Kelsey McLean is marked in for the second heat of girls’ 100 meter preliminary heats, and Rebel junior Shelby Wilks is set for the second heat of the girls’ 300 meter hurdle prelims.
The Lake Washington boys’ 4×100 meter relay team, which won the KingCo and SeaKing District titles, is in the second heat of preliminary races on Friday, running in lane four.
The Juanita girls’ 4×100 meter relay team is in the first heat on Friday.
Lake Washington freshman Thayer Davis is set to run in the second heat of the girls’ 400 meter preliminaries, and Lake Washington senior Scout Callens should run in the second heat of the boys’ 200 meter prelims.
For updated results throughout the day, follow @JowardHoward on Twitter, or scroll through the WIAA online results page.
