Forks girls win home track and field meet

By Pierre LaBossiere

Olympic Peninsula News Group

FORKS — The Forks girls track and field team took first in a Pacific 2B League meet held in Forks this week while the boys came in a close second to Willapa Valley.

The meet featured several Pacific 2B League teams as well as North Olympic League teams from Neah Bay, Crescent and Clallam Bay. Several athletes from these schools also won events.

The Forks girls took first as a team with 120 points, while North Beach was second at 102 and Neah Bay third at 78.5. Crescent was fourth at 71 and Clallam Bay 7th at 35.

While the Forks girls had the most points, Crescent girls won the most events. Naomii Sprague and Katelyn Dunavant were both double winners. Sprague took first in the 200 meters with a time of 28.85 seconds and won the long jump with a distance of 14 feet, 4¾ inches.

Dunavant won the shot put with a distance of 27-5 and took first in the discus with a throw of 73-8.

The Forks and Neah Bay girls relay teams had quite the duel. The Forks 4×100 team of Leslie Hernandez Beltran, Erika Williams, Emery Damron and Miley Blanton won in a time of 58.75, beating a Neah Bay foursome by 0.94 seconds. Meanwhile, the Neah Bay 4×200 team of Brianna McGimpsey, Cerise Moss, Ryana Moss and Angel Halttunen took first in a time of 2:03.34, beating a Forks foursome by 1.47 seconds.

Neah Bay’s Ryana Moss also won the 1,600 meters in a time of 6:17.70.

For the boys, Forks had 125 points, just behind first-place Willapa’s 129. Crescent was fourth with 67 points, while Neah Bay was seventh at 31 and Clallam Bay eighth with 15.

The Forks 4×100 team — Ryan Anderson, Noah Foster, Klaton Helvey and Grady Earls — took first in a time of 49.55. Foster added a first-place finish in he 400 meters in a time of 59.22.

Sloan Tumaua, who placed at state in the discus last year, took first with a throw of 128-1, winning this event by nearly 44 feet.

Julian Carrick of Neah Bay won the long jump with a leap of 16-4 and Crescent’s Dominiq Sprague won the triple jump with a distance of 35-8.

Clallam Bay’s top finish was by Kyleigh Richardson in the 300-meter hurdles. She finished third in a time of 1:03.91.