By KLAS STOLPE
Sentinel Staff Report
Some of the fastest Alaska high school track and field athletes will take part in the Brian Young Invitational at West Anchorage High School beginning noon Friday and continuing through Saturday.
The Sitka boys and girls teams are fresh off of second- and third-place team finishes, respectively, from the ASAA State Championships last weekend, meaning some of the Wolves selected for the BYI will still be peaking.
“They performed right where they were expected to,” Sitka coach Jeremy Strong said. “That shows you how deep the fields are, how strong the competition is.”
The Brian Young Invitational is named in honor of a longtime Kodiak fisherman and supporter of youth athletics who passed away while descending from the summit of Mount McKinley in 2011. The meet invites some of the top high school athletes from the various regions in the state to combine and compete. Officials from each region gather to choose the fastest times, combining athletes from all schools in both Division I and Division II to create super teams for a collective competition to determine who’s fastest.
The meet is sanctioned by USA Track and Field and fully sponsors the athletes chosen to attend.
Southeast Region V will combine with Region VI athletes from the Fairbanks area.
This means that Sitka’s 2019 graduate Joei Vidad, the runner-up at the Division II tourney to Delta Junction junior Hailey Williams in the 100, 200, and 400 meter runs, will now team with Williams in a 4x400 relay that could break the All-Time Alaska mark for any meet.
2019 graduate Joei Vidad will compete with select athletes from around the state at the Brian Young Invitational track meet in Anchorage.
“This was the year that Joei was the closest to her,” Strong said. “Nobody has been able to run at her like Joei ran at her this year, which is a testament to the kids and the work they put in. Joei’s times this year were second only to one person in the state, and that person was Hailey Williams.”
Athletes attending from Region V include Vidad, Wolves 2019 graduates Skyler McIntyre, Hailey Bartolaba and Jessica Davis, junior Dominic Baciocco, and sophomore Lindsey Bartolaba; Juneau-Douglas Yadaa.at Kalé 2019 graduates Arne Ellefson-Carnes and Bailey Wery Tagaban, junior Sadie Tuckwood, and sophomore Dalton Hoy; Thunder Mountain sophomores Hannah Deer and Ali Beya; Haines sophomore Wesley Verhamme; and Ketchikan freshman Ada Odden.
2019 Sitka graduate Skyler McIntyre, Juneau-Douglas Yadaa.at Kalé graduate Arne Ellefson-Carnes, and Sitka junior Dominic Baciocco will join forces to compete with select Wolves athletes and others from around the state in the Brian Young Invitational all-star track and field meet in Anchorage this weekend. (Sentinel Photos Klas Stolpe)
The combined Region V and VI will be up against Region II Anchorage area schools, Region III Kenai area schools, and Region IV Matsu-Valley area schools.
“Our girls 4x400 has the possibility to run a sub-four minutes,” Strong said. “That would be under the fastest times in the state of Alaska.”
Williams runs 400 meters in 58.10, Vidad in 58.31, Deer in 1:00.07, and L. Bartolaba in 1:02.10. A team from Kenai has run a 4:01.72 in the 2010 state championships.
“If we can get clean handoffs it’s doable,” Strong said. “USA officials said the Sitka handoffs at the state meet were some of the best they saw. That’s what we are hoping for, to just keep the baton moving. These kids combined are experienced and have done it for years so we have a good shot.”
Strong also noted the Brian Young Invitational caps off the careers of many athletes attending.
“It should be a fast, fun meet,” Strong said. “This is a meet where everybody gets to relax and there is not the looming ‘you have to be a state champion,’ it’s just go out and run your best time.”
Strong also commented on the end of the Wolves’ season.
“It was an emotionally charged season,” Strong said. “Some of these kids have spent four years and been state champs, they have been runner-up multiple times in multiple sports. So just watching everybody just come together and realize that this was kind of it as a team is emotional. Things don’t always work out the way you want them to but sometimes things turn out better than you hoped. Over the last four years with this group of seniors things have been on the rise and they are still hitting really great times.”
He noted that 2019 graduates Joe Pate, Ella Lubin, and Tabor Buxton were eight-season athletes, meaning they ran four years of cross country and four of track.
“Joe has been to eight state meets,” Strong said. “What he has accomplished gets overlooked. He is probably the most decorated runner that Sitka High has ever had if you think about his overall body of work.”
Pate has been a runner-up team member in cross country twice, a state champion once, and three times a track team state runner-up, and has taken first in the 4x800 as a freshman and senior.
“That is great to bookend your career like that,” Strong said. “And he has multiple individual seconds and thirds. He has been amazing. Then you throw in the sprint girls and hurdles girls I have had over the last four seasons and it’s been a real productive time.”
