Glacier Peak boys finish 1st, girls 2nd at annual Eason Invite

Published 1:30 am Saturday, April 22, 2017

SNOHOMISH — Over its nearly three-decade history, the Larry Eason Invitational has grown into one of the state’s premier high-school track and field meets.

This year’s edition was the biggest ever, drawing nearly 1,600 athlete entries from the 63 teams that converged on Snohomish High School for the annual midseason event.

Yet it was a hometown school that made the most noise.

Led by several winning relay performances, Glacier Peak captured the boys team title and took home the girls second-place team trophy in Saturday’s 29th annual Eason Invitational.

“It was exciting,” Grizzlies coach Loren Childers said. “It was a good day of competition all around. Whenever you come to the Eason — when you have (60-plus) teams — you’re going to get good competition to push you to better times.

“We had a lot of top-eight finishes,” he added, “and when you score that deep, you’re going to score quite a few points.”

The Glacier Peak boys tallied 62 points, finishing more than 16 points ahead of second-place Gonzaga Prep. The defending champion Grizzlies girls team finished with 56.5 points, while Issaquah took the girls title with 70.5 points.

“It was pretty cool for it to happen here,” Glacier Peak senior standout Chris Bianchini said of winning the boys team title. “It’s a big (meet), it’s home and everybody comes to watch. It’s pretty cool.”

Among the highlights for the Glacier Peak boys was a thrilling victory by the 4×400 relay team of Ethan Willems, Heston Pettis, Nicholas Mullineux Perrault and Bianchini. With the Grizzlies in third place entering the final 400 meters, Bianchini delivered a speedy anchor leg to edge second-place Kamiak by 0.28 seconds for a winning time of 3 minutes, 28.38 seconds.

“(I was) just trying to close in that last lap and bring it home. That’s what it’s all about,” Bianchini said. “That last 200, both of us, you could tell, kind of felt it in our legs. We were struggling a little bit, but (I) just barely came out on top, so it feels good.”

“Chris is a competitor all the way,” Childers added. “So when he gets the baton, we know we’re in good hands — whether we’re behind or ahead. Most people can’t catch him. He’s got some good foot speed and he’s strong. He’s got that distance base and sprinter speed, so it’s a good combination for a 4×400.”

Bianchini and junior teammate Mullineux Perrault also helped the Grizzlies to victory in the distance medley relay and earned the team a pair of top-five finishes in the talent-filled Elite 800 meters race, which included runners from multiple states and Canada. Bianchini placed third in the Elite 800 and Mullineux Perrault finished close behind in fifth, while Shorewood senior and University of Washington signee Devan Kirk posted a winning time of 1:56.14.

On the girls side, the Glacier Peak 4×100 relay team of Mackenzie Aiken, Haley Grambo, Lena Agnew and anchor Tamia DeSchmidt edged second-place Kamiak by 0.07 seconds for a winning time of 50.99 seconds. The Grizzlies girls also took first place in the distance medley relay, winning by nearly 30 seconds to give Glacier Peak a program sweep in the event.

Grizzlies senior Maya McFadden, a standout heptathlete and University of Idaho signee, won the javelin with a mark of 134 feet, 4 inches.

The Edmonds-Woodway girls also delivered a strong showing, tying with Garfield for third place in the team standings with 53 points.

A pair of Warriors sophomores took first and second place in the 3200 meters, with Stephanie Wroblewski posting a winning time of 11:03.82 and Olivia Meader-Yetter finishing close behind in 11:05.22.

“That was exciting,” Edmonds-Woodway coach Rick Fillman said. “(I’m) extremely pleased. … I just felt chills that they were doing that well, running together, staying together and then able to go one-two at the end.”

Wroblewski played on the tennis team last spring, but is emerging as a star in her first season running track.

“Everything we’ve done so far for her this year has been new,” Fillman said. “Until you do something, you never know really quite how good you are. There’s always that question: ‘How good am I?’ And I think hopefully she answered a lot of questions for herself (today). She’s phenomenal. And I think today proved that.”

Edmonds-Woodway senior Vernice Keyes added a convincing win in the discus (135-05), while junior teammate Hannah Hicks placed second in the long jump and senior teammate Allyson Ely took second in the pole vault.

For the Warriors boys, senior Matthew Park pulled away with a strong closing kick to win the 1600 meters in 4:20.79, beating Kamiak senior Cullen McEachern by 1.08 seconds.

“The amount of effort and fight he had in the final 50 (meters) — every cell in his body was pushing to the maximum amount,” Fillman said.

Kamiak sophomore Alicia Anderson won the girls 1600 meters with a school-record time of 5:01.98, beating Lynnwood senior Malia Pivec by 1.09 seconds.

It was the third time in less than a month that the Kamiak record has been broken. After Anderson broke the record a few weeks ago, Knights senior Katherine Slack bettered her teammate’s time earlier this week. But Anderson returned the favor Saturday.

“She beat my (record) on Thursday, so I was like, ‘I have to go get it again,’” Anderson said. “It’s fun having that competition.”

As Kamiak coach Charley LeWarne points out, it might not be the last time the school record is broken this season.

“It’s not going to be written in pen right now,” LeWarne said with a laugh. “Soft pencil, with lots of erasers nearby.”

Mariner junior Suzy Pace cleared 5 feet, 2 inches to win the high jump and placed third in both the 100-meter and 300-meter hurdles. Lynnwood senior Rita Sakharov won the 300-meter hurdles with an impressive time of 45.95 seconds.

Meadowdale senior Cyrus Marshall cleared 14 feet in the boys pole vault to match first-place Ryan Clutter of Woodinville, but took second place by virtue of a tiebreaker.

Decatur’s Kemuel Santana was named the boys track athlete of the meet and Issaquah’s Joe Nelson was the boys field athlete of the meet. Issaquah’s Nikki Stephens was the girls track athlete of the meet and South Kitsap’s Emily Reeder was the girls field athlete of the meet.

It was the second Eason Invitational since the passing of longtime Snohomish track and field coach Tuck Gionet, who helped form the event in 1989 and spearheaded its growth into one of the state’s biggest meets.

“It never gets easier without Tuck around,” said Childers, who helped run Saturday’s meet. “He was a big influence on everybody in this community. He was the glue that kept this meet going.”

“We’re doing everything we can to keep his legacy going,” Snohomish coach Paul Nicoletti added. “That was our goal — to keep the meet going — and this was the biggest meet we’ve ever had. It was a great day of competition.”