Busy Myron’s three wins lead Pullman to title

Lindsay Myron was in a hurry.

The Pullman junior had just won the girls State 2A 100-meter hurdles championship with a time of 15.30 seconds and stood atop the awards platform awaiting her gold medal, but she stole a glance over her shoulder toward the opposite side of Eastern Washington University’s Woodward Field.

Myron stepped down from the platform, calmly walked across the infield, and promptly won the triple jump on her first attempt with a meet-record effort of 37 feet, 5 1/2 inches.

“I think it probably helped to go straight from one event to the other,” Myron said. “I was nice and loose when I got there and I probably had a little adrenaline left over from the hurdles.”

Myron’s meet-record jump bettered the mark of 37- 3/4 set in 1999 and equaled in 2002. She won the event last year with a jump of 36-2.

After a couple of hours’ rest, Myron completed her day by winning the 300 hurdles – helping to vault the Greyhounds into the team championship with 78 points.

“We were pretty disappointed after Friday,” Myron said. “We had some kids we thought would advance not do so well. But we just decided to put that out of our minds and just go out and do better today.”

Pullman managed just 15 team points through Friday’s finals and was in fourth place, behind Lakeside-Nine Mile Falls (32), Colville (24) and Brush Prairie (16) going into Saturday.

Myron’s 30 team points, coupled with Lexie Fairbanks’ eight from a second-place finish in the triple jump, were just the shot in the arm Pullman needed – launching the Greyhounds to the team championship capped by Anna Albrecht’s win in the shot put and a third-place finish in the 4x400 relay.

Albrecht, third in the discus Friday, threw 39-10 1/2 to win the shot put.

The Greyhounds led a three-team sweep by the Great Northern League in the meet’s final appearance at EWU before moving to Bellingham next spring. Colville finished with 60 points, followed by Lakeside with 48.

Colville juniors Brittney Williams and Nikkol Sipes finished 1-2 in the 1,600 final. Williams finished in 5 minutes, 13.65 seconds, with Sipes crossing in 5:15.78. Teammate Caitlin McGrane finished second to Myron in the 100 hurdles in 15.35.

Colville also finished second in the 4x200 final by running a 1:46.64 and trailing only Steilacoom’s winning mark of 1:44.76.

Othello’s Courtney Kirkwood established a record in the javelin. The sophomore’s winning throw of 152-11 was more than 8 feet better than the mark set last year by Cassandra Merkley of Cascade-Leavenworth, who threw 144-7. Kirkwood was second last year at 132-9.

State 1A

Colfax junior Lauren Mellor did her best to ignore the crowd and concentrate on her hurdling technique.

“That’s the thing about the hurdles,” she said. “You have to maintain your technique. I just kept focusing on doing that and ignoring every thing else.”

It worked. Mellor turned in a personal-best 15.95 to win – outleaning Jade Langston of Seattle Academy, who finished with an identical hand-held time.

Cedar Park senior Jane Larson capped her high school career by finishing first in three events – the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 – and helped her teammates win the 4x400 relay for the second straight year.

During her career, Larson won the 1,600 and 3,200 four consecutive times – capping her career with a meet-record 5:01.61 in the 1,600.

She also won two 800 titles and helped her team win back-to-back 4x400 championships.

“I really wanted to get the meet record (in the 1,600),” she said. “When I crossed the finish line I wasn’t sure if I’d gotten it.”

Cedar Park easily won the team title with 95 points. Charles Wright Academy was second with 76 and Seattle Academy third with 70.

Freeman placed fifth with 40 points, led by freshman Leah Willard’s second-place finish in the high jump, clearing 5-0.

State B

Willapa Valley’s Chelsi Friese already had the pole vault championship wrapped up by clearing 9-6 when a hailstorm hit and halted competition for an hour while crews swept the solid precipitation from the track.

After waiting out the delay, the junior went out and broke the meet record in her event by a foot, clearing 11-3, eclipsing the mark set by Valley Christian’s Tina Terry in 2002.

“I was so glad that I had already won when we got the delay,” she said. “And I was concerned coming back whether I would be too cold or too tired. But I relaxed and was able to get a PR.”

Tacoma Baptist won the team title with 58 points, edging Pateros’ 55.

The two teams finished 1-2 in the final event, the 4x400 relay, with Pateros running away with the win in 4:09.71, more than 3 seconds ahead of the Crusaders.