SEATTLE — Lake Washington junior Brandon Gockel qualified for the Class 3A state championships on Wednesday, finishing second in the javelin competition during day one of the SeaKing District track meet.

Gockel cleared 160 feet, 2 inches, breaking 160 feet for the second week in a row. Gockel also finished second in the KingCo championships to the same athlete — Bellevue senior Will Swanson, who won the event with a mark of 165-04.

The top five finishers in each event qualify for the state championship meet, scheduled for May 26-28 in Tacoma.

Juanita’s Randy Jones also qualified on the first day, taking third in the triple jump with a mark of 43 feet, 4 inches, a season-best for the Rebel senior.

Both schools had athletes qualify on the girls’ side as well. Juanita’s Natayah Bauer finished second in the discus competition with a throw of 112 feet, 4 inches, while Lake Washington’s Brittany Blaskovich finished fifth in the pole vault by tying her career-best mark of 10 feet.

The top six athletes in the preliminary races qualify for finals, scheduled for Friday, May 20 at Southwest Athletic Complex on the campus of Chief Seath High School in Seattle.

The Lake Washington boys’ 4×100 meter relay team set the program’s fastest time in 15 seasons, as Ryan Clifford, DJ Mann, Chet Atuanya and Scout Callens took the top seed with a time of 42.98 seconds.

It’s the second week in a row for the Kangaroos to set a season-best in the event, and goes down as the fourth-fastest time in program history, according to records on the Lake Washington Athletic.net profile.

Callens set a career-best to take the fourth seed in the 400 meter prelims with a time of 22.38 seconds. Brett Walker finished with the sixth seed in the 400 meters.

Juanita senior Noah Kells ran just shy of a career-best in the boys’ 800 meters preliminary race to take the top overall seed into Friday’s final. Kells finished in 1:58.86, edging Ballard’s Owen Buck, who finished in 1:58.94.

Rebel junior Salvon Ahmed sent in his best time in the month of May to take the second seed into Friday’s 100 meter finals, registering 11.09 seconds.

Juanita’s Nathan Casebier made the finals in both hurdle events. Casebier ran considerably slower than his times at the KingCo championships, but has the third seed in the finals for the 110 meter hurdles and the sixth seed in the 300 meter hurdles. Jones also qualified for the 300 meter hurdles with the fourth seed.

The Rebels barely squeaked into the 4×100 meter relay finals, edging Seattle Prep by just over one 10th of a second for the sixth-best time. The 4×400 meter relay team takes the fourth overall seed.

Three individual athletes and two relay teams qualified for finals from the Juanita girls’ team. Natalie Kalda takes the third seed into the 100 meter hurdle finals, while teammate Shelby Wilks takes the sixth seed. Kelsey McLean takes the sixth seed into the 100 meter finals.

The Juanita girls’ 4×100 meter relay team finished second in preliminaries, with Colleen O’Neal, Milena Kolesnikova, Jayla Kidd and McLean closing in 50.49 seconds. The Rebel 4×200 relay team takes the fourth seed into the finals.

The only individual qualifier for the Lake Washington girls’ was freshman Thayer Davis, who set a career-best in the 400 meters to take the fourth seed to Friday’s wrap-up.

The first events on Friday are scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m.