By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
With school sports wrapping up for the summer, Sitka High track and field runners notched a number of personal records and took first place among other small schools at the Region V track and field races in Juneau, Friday and Saturday.
The Wolves ran in Division II, along with Haines and Petersburg, with larger schools such as Ketchikan, Thunder Mountain and Juneau-Douglas competing separately.
On the girls side, Sitka runners scored many of the fastest times - regardless of division.
In the two-mile race, sophomore runner Anna Prussian took first in 11:58, outrunning all of her competitors from all schools.
“It was really good, especially my two-mile. My goal this season for the two-mile was to break 12, and I ran an 11:58, which was really big for me because I was really excited to break 12 in it… It was a really tight race between me and this other Juneau girl (Annika Schwartz),” Prussian told the Sentinel Tuesday. The two have raced before, but this time Prussian edged out her competitor by just over one second.
From the left, Sitka’s Santanna Sumauang, Lindsey Bartolaba, Haines’ Haley Boron, and Sitka’s Makayla Moore sprint in the 100 meter race in the Region V track and field tournament in Juneau, Saturday (Klas Stolpe/KINY)
Prussian recalled the race in vivid detail.
“Through lap five is where it really starts to hurt, and so she passed me and I knew I just had to hold onto her shoulder for the rest of the race. And the last lap was actually really hard,” Prussian said. “There was a headwind that hit us at about 300 meters, so it was hard to draft behind her, but just getting around that bend in the last 100 meters was just kind of all out. It was really intense.”
With the state championship only days away, Prussian will run the two-mile with Schwartz again this weekend.
“It’s going to be a really tense race and it’s going to come down to who can push through the pain,” she said.
Second place in the Division II two-mile went to Sitka’s Emma Gassman, who finished in 12:40. She took third in the one-mile race.
Prussian also claimed second place in the 800 meter race, at 2:35, and in the one mile, at 5:38.
The first place spot in both of those events went to another Sitka runner - junior Tawny Smith.
In the half mile, Smith finished in 2:28, a full seven seconds ahead of Prussian and 12 seconds faster than the first place Division I runner. Smith again dominated the one-mile race in 5:23, a Wolf well ahead of the pack.
Prior to the races, Smith said, she and other runners discussed mindset.
“It felt pretty good. In the mile at least we were racing with the 4A. It was definitely tough… We talked a lot before the meet about mindset. Because the week before in Juneau it was really bad weather and we all started the mile and none of us were in the right mindset,” she said.
With the season ending in only a couple of days, Smith has high hopes for the state meet.
“We’ve got a few events that are projected to do pretty well at state, like our mile, the 800. The four by eight (hundred meter relay) is ranked pretty high as well. So I’m hoping to place pretty high at state, if not win some of those events. A lot of us haven’t really had that chance to race someone,” Smith said.
With a significant number of personal records run in the regional meet, coach Jeremy Strong said it shows his athletes possess a great ability to grow over time.
“I kind of figured that was going to happen this year, just knowing the kids that we have and knowing our ability to grow through the season. I kind of saw the writing on the wall,” Strong said.
After losing the 2020 track season to the pandemic, the coach noted there was some uncertainty this spring.
“I didn’t know what we were going to have after last year. Losing out on last year and now having momentum moving forward, what that’s going to look like over the next few years as the kids continue to get better and develop,” he said.
With the state races imminent, Strong added that he’s eager for some of his top runners to race serious competition.
“Just to compete at that level, I mean just to watch some of these kids race kids that are as fast as them,” Strong said. “Some of the kids, for instance, Tawny runs the mile and leads the mile the whole time. There is no one on her hip trying to push her.”
In the relays, the Lady Wolves again sped past their competition, taking first in each relay event.
In the four by 100 meter race, Santanna Sumauang, Lindsey Bartolaba, Maitlin Young and Deszerei Chong took first in 54.76, less than a second ahead of the Haines squad. Chong, Young, Mia Skultka and Makayla Moore finished first in the four by 200 race too, this time in a flat two minutes. In the four by 400 race, Smith, Young, Adelaide Poulson and Jordan Gagner took first in 4:37, and in the much longer four by 800 meter race, Smith, Poulson, Prussian, and Emma Gassman ran without opposition. They finished first in 11:35.
In the sprint events, the Lady Wolves also performed well. Lindsey Bartolaba took first in the 100 meter race in 13.34, only a tenth of a second ahead of Haines’ Haley Boron. Sitka’s Sumauang finished third in 13.78, followed by Makayla Moore at 14.53.
In the 200 meter sprint, Bartolaba again took first place, this time in 27.81, followed by Haines’ Avari Getchell in second, with Chong and Moore in third and fourth respectively. And in the longer 400 meter race, Bartolaba completed her sweep of the sprints with a first place finish in 1:05, well ahead of second place finisher, Lady Wolves Mia Skultka, at 1:10. Sitka’s Young took third, a fraction of a second behind Skultka.
In the hurdles, Sitka junior Addie Poulson took first place in the 100 meter race, in 18.72, followed by Gagner at 19.69. In the 300 meter hurdles, Poulson finished second at 51.14, less than a second behind Haines’ Avery Williamson.
“This is my first year doing hurdles, and I actually didn’t do it at the start of this season,” Poulson said. All told, she has hurdled for only four weeks.
Looking back on the regional events, she said she had fun regardless of winning.
“I got to the end and I had a big smile on my face. I think even if I hadn’t won I would have had a lot of fun. Especially in the 100 meter hurdles you kind of get into a rhythm. You take four steps, jump over. Four steps, jump over. And it’s really satisfying and fun,” she remembered.
In the state tournament, she hopes to enjoy herself again and possibly run another personal record.
“I don’t think I have any worries. Honestly I’m really hoping to have fun… I think having competition at state will help me do that. I’m not necessarily concerned about getting a place, but more of doing my best,” she said.
In shot put and discus, Lady Wolves Jocelyn Brady took second, bested only by Haines’ Haley Boron. Brady’s teammate, Santanna Sumauang finished first in the long jump and triple jump as well.
Like the girls team, the boys team clinched the first place spot among small schools at the meet.
As has become the norm this season, Wolves sophomore Silas Demmert swept the first place spots in the two-mile, in 10:42; in the one-mile, at 4:53; and in the half-mile, in 2:11.
“What went well, the two-mile and mile I think. Just staying in the lead for both of those… I know I could have gone a lot faster for the two-mile,” Demmert told the Sentinel at practice on Tuesday. “It’s just hard to gauge where you are timewise when there’s not really people next to you. And for the mile, I think that I kind of got nervous, just a little bit about Finn Morley going out too fast, but I know now I can go that hard, because after the mile I was like I still have a little bit left in me.”
For Juneau-Douglas, Morley ran the one-mile race in a blistering 4:42.
At state, Demmert hopes to improve his mile time further.
“I’m super excited for it and I think from my races it will be a good chance to see where I’m at at peak fitness. Hopefully getting a 4:45 mile time,” Demmert said.
In the relays, Demmert’s teammate Dylan Crenna said a major motivator was the desire to do well for his team.
“We’ve been training really hard, every day in practice just running through it and getting it down. Also a big thing was not letting your team down, that’s what really made the drive for me to win,” Crenna said.
While Crenna ran in the half-mile and mile, earning fifth and third respectively, it was in the relays that he and the Wolves found their footing.
Sitka High boys won all four relays.
In the four by 100, Carson Grant, Noah Blackmon, Caleb Hutton and Levi Danielson were first over the line in 47.69. Finishing in 1:42, Tyler Adres, Sergio Carlos, Danielson and Blackmon snagged first again in the four by 200. In the four by 400, Blackmon, Annan Weiland, Crenna and Carlos took first by less than half a second, with the Haines squad in pursuit.
In the four by 800 relay, Sitka’s boys ran alone, with Crenna, Hank Maxwell, Weiland and Demmert finishing in 10:04.
In the sprints, Carson Grant took second in the 100 meter race at 12.05, just behind Petersburg’s Aiden Luhr. Grant again took second behind Luhr in the 200.
But in the quarter-mile race, Annan Weiland finished first in 59.14, followed by Sergio Carlos, 59.40, and Felix Myers, at 1:00.
In 300 meter hurdles, Noah Blackmon took third, and in the 110 meter hurdles Sitka’s David Davis took second.
“The hurdles were all right this week, I was kind of hoping to do better, but I still PRed,” Blackmon said. “I was kind of gassed this week, I’ll have more energy and I’ll focus on my form a little bit more,”
In shot put, Caleb Hutton took second, with Dalton Voron in fourth and Edward Richards in sixth.
Hutton again finished second in discus, with Voron still in fourth. Asa Dow claimed second in the high jump and third in the triple jump. Carson Grant took second in the long jump.
Top members of the Wolves track and field squad headed north today for the state championships at Diamond High School in Anchorage.
