After racing to a pair of state championships in track and field last year, Seton Catholic’s Alexis Leone was looking for a new challenge this spring.
Leone will go for state titles in all three distance events after capturing district titles Thursday in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 meters.
“I wanted to try something new because I did the 3,200, 1,600 and 4×400 (relay) last year at state,” Leone said. “And I just wanted to see just how far I could take this year.”
Leone’s day started by winning the 3,200 in 12 minutes, 9.10 seconds (well off her season best of 10:33.70).
Less than an hour later, she won the 1,600 in 5:18.29 (season best 5:02.86). Another hour later, she won the 800 meters in 2:27.86 (season best 2:20.10).
“Yeah, it’s a little brutal, but it’s good for training, training through it,” she said. “I tried to pace myself through the whole thing, keep a steady pace through the whole meet, then see how I can improve. But really, I was just trying to qualify through today.”
Leone capped her day by running the anchor leg in Seton’s 1,600-meter relay, which placed second and qualified for state.
While Leone was running all over the track on Friday, another reigning state champion was noticeably absent.
La Center junior Shaela Bradley, who won the 1A state title for 400 meters last spring, did not qualify for Thursday’s meet because she was out of the country during last week’s Trico League meet, the first step in qualifying for the state meet.
Bradley, who has verbally committed to play college soccer for Rutgers, was invited to play with a national junior select soccer team in Germany as part of an event with FC Bayern Munich.
“How do you pass up something like that?” La Center athletic director Matt Cooke said.
La Center’s Davari Grauer raced to victories Thursday in the 100 (10.80 seconds) and 200 (22.33). Other local boys district champions included Carter Rossman (400) and Aidan Sweeney (110 hurdles) of King’s Way Christian (400), Will Simmons (300 hurdles) of La Center, Hudson Holzhauer (discus) of Stevenson and Cayden Lauder (pole vault) of Seton Catholic.
King’s Way Christian captured the boys team title with 106.5 points, edging out second-place La Center (101.5) and Seton Catholic (91.5).
In the girls meet, Ella Zimmerman of Columbia-White Salmon swept the two hurdle races. Other local winners included Casie Kleine (400), Kynsi Bayes (discus) and Paige Kessler (long jump) of Castle Rock and Jessica Polkinghorn (shot put) of Columbia-White Salmon.
Castle Rock (105 points) placed second in the girls standings to Montesano. Seton Catholic (98) was third.
