Mt. Hood Track Festival showcases Saints’ talent

Photos by Nick Pelster.

Mt. Hood hosted its own track and field meet on Saturday, April 30, appropriately named the Mt. Hood Track Festival, and invited the likes of Clackamas and Everett community colleges and Southern Oregon and Concordia universities to participate in the multitude of events. There was a wide range of competitors that included four-year university and unaffiliated athletes.

The Saints fared well across the board, with both the men and women outdoing opponents in various sections of the track and placing at or near the top in field events.

The Saints’ Danelle Woodcock was again one of the top performers of the day, placing first in both the women’s 100 and 200 meter dashes with respective times of 12.00 and 25.54 seconds. Her teammate, Kinnah Rhodes, ran the 100 meters in 12.30, taking second place, and also finished third in the 110 meter hurdles. Mt. Hood placed first in the 4×100 women’s relay, with Woodcock, Rhodes, Tori Wilkerson and Mikhayla Baravik working well as a team. Saints’ cross country lead runner Leah Norquist took third in the 800-meter run, crossing the finish line in 2:20.59, and Wilkerson tied for first with Oregon Tech’s Veronica Norris in the high jump, with a measurement of 1.53 meters.

Woodcock also decimated the long jump field, posting a best distance of 5.66 meters The field portion of the meet saw Mt. Hood’s Chesi Dixson place sixth in each of three events: the shot put (8.83 meters), discus throw (24.74), and hammer throw (30.47). Taylor Rispler gave the Saints a second-place finish with a 38.92 meter javelin throw, followed by teammate Kayla Watkins in seventh with a toss of 27.3 meters.

The men’s side featured second- and third-place winners in the 100 meter dash, as Joshua Turner and Chad Figueroa crossed at 11.17 and 11.30, respectively. Figueroa also finished atop the 200 meter dash with a second-section best time of 23.01 seconds, while Jonathan Zacarias took second in section No. 2 of the 1500m run, finishing at 4:08.43 minutes. Zacarias also placed first in the third section of 800 meter run, clocking in at 2:02.00, 4.3 seconds quicker than third-place teammate Jacob Barnett. Distance runner Luke Lowe paced to a sixth-place finish in the 5000 meters, with a time of 17:05.94.

Mt. Hood locked down the hurdles as Turner took the top spot in both the 110 and 400 meter races with best times of 14.34 and 57.10, respectively. Long jump was also dominated by the Saints, with Jaron Barrow finishing in first with a leap of 6.53, just .02 meters ahead of Turner in second place. Turner then topped the triple jump with a distance of 13.75 meters, followed by teammate Aaron Colford in third with a 13.02 mark and Barrow in fourth with a 12.80.

Continuing the first-place theme was Brian Salgado in the shot put, tossing an impressive 13.43 meters. Fellow Saints Joshua Spears and Alec Fappas rounded out the No. 4 and 5 spots, throwing respective distances of 11.23 and 10.66 meters. Week Six NWAC “player” of the week Lexington Reese was within .15 meters of first place in the javelin throw, with a distance of 60.45 meters – 5.1 meters further than his next closest competitor, in third.

Spears and Salgado took the top two spots in the discus throw, topping out at 41.99 and 40.02 meters, as Fappas placed sixth with a 32.86- meter toss.

The Saints travel to Eugene on May 14 to compete in the Southern Regional Championships at Lane Community College, then turn around and play host again on May 23-24, this time for the NWAC championship meet.

Advocate Staff