After an undefeated dual-meet season, second place at the KingCo 3A meet and numerous school records shattered, add one more accolade for the Liberty boys track and field team in 2010: District champions.
The Patriots won the Sea-King District Meet May 21, scoring 100 points to best second-place Bellevue with 87. It is the first district title for the Liberty boys team in school history.
“It was really fun,” said Liberty coach Mike Smith. “We were firmly entrenched near the bottom until they started putting in the field events. The field events really carried us in the meet.”
Senior Peter Stacy continued his dominance in throwing events, matching a javelin district title with Top 5 finishes in the shot put and discus. Stacy threw a distance of 179-3 in the javelin, his second-best distance of the season. He threw 186-3 May 12 at the KingCo meet to break the Liberty school record.
Stacy finished second in discus and fifth in shot put.
Joshua Gordon won the long jump with distance of 21-10 1/2 – his best distance this season by seven inches. Gordon placed second in the high jump, eight in the triple jump and was part of Liberty’s winning 4×400 team (Troy Solly, Devin Bennett, Eric Bice and Gordon).
Gordon, just a sophomore, has been a big surprise for Smith.
“We knew Peter Stacy was going to be very good, but Josh Gordon has really come on,” Smith said. “If someone else is running faster, he thinks he should be doing it too. He just doesn’t like to lose.”
Bennett, a junior, placed second in both the long and triple jump.
The Patriots 4×400 team shaved nearly seven seconds from the preliminary race to the finals, coming from behind to beat Bellevue by 0.32 seconds.
Solly, a senior, finished fourth in the 300-meter hurdles, which qualified him for state in the event.
Bice, also a senior, placed third in the 1,600 and fourth in the 800 and will compete in both events at state.
Senior Alex Faulkner and sophomore Hamilton Noel took second and third in the pole vault.
Liberty was able to bounce back and beat Bellevue just a week after losing the KingCo meet to the Wolverines because of the Metro’s depth in the sprints.
The Patriots, and the rest of the KingCo 3A, don’t have much depth in the sprints this year, so Bellevue was able to win points in that area. But at districts, with better sprinters from the Metro league to neutralize Bellevue’s advantage in the area, Liberty’s strengths at other spots won out.
Smith said he isn’t sure how the team will perform at state, since some schools like North Central have elite national-level athletes like Ben Johnston, who will “just go out and win multiple events.”
“We’re hoping to get a nice day and have the kids go crazy,” Smith said. “If it gets spread out enough different ways it could get really interesting.”
The Liberty girls team placed 11th at districts with 26 points.
Liberty’s 4×200 relay team of Madison Birdsall, Delane Agnew, Elizabeth Ryker and Michaela Chucka finished third in the finals and advanced to state. The same four also qualified for state in the 4×400 relay.
Sophomore Emily Pestl-Dimmitt placed fourth in the high jump and will compete at state in the event.
