Outlaws bring home state track medals

Ten members of the Sisters High School track team are now owners of state meet medals after last weekend's OSAA Championships held at Hayward Field in Eugene. The meet capped a successful season under new head coach Jeff Larson and his staff.

Juniors Michaela Miller and Jadon Bachtold each earned three medals, which is no easy task, according to Larson.

Bachtold began his medal collection on Friday by finishing seventh in a very close 3,000-meter race in which the top nine runners finished with nine seconds of one another. His time of 9:00.5 kept him in fifth place on the all-time school list.

Early Saturday afternoon, he came back with another seventh place in the 1,500 against many of the same competitors in another tight race and finished with a time of 4:09.85.

In the final event of the meet, Bachtold's lucky number 7 struck again as the quartet of Andreas Pedersen, Sam Garbrecht, and Keegan Greaney clocked 3:31.59.

After placing 11th in the long jump (15 feet 4.5 inches) Miller garnered her first medal in the opening running event on Saturday, the 400-meter relay. She teamed with Mandi Calavan, Macadia Calavan and Erynn Ricker to place fourth in a thrilling race in 50.61 seconds.

Miller saved her best 100-meter hurdle race of the season for when it mattered most and finished fourth with a time of 16.0 seconds, and concluded her four-event meet by placing sixth in the 300 hurdles in 48.16 seconds.

Senior Aria Blumm competed in her fourth and final state meet before moving on to Occidental College in the fall and added two medals to her career collection by placing eighth in both the 3,000 (10:46.85) and the 1,500 (4:55.02).

The Outlaws had some near misses in making it to the podium, but Ricker did earn an individual medal in the 100, where she placed eighth in 13.12.

Just out of the medal count were Tessa O'Hern in the pole vault (9 feet 6 inches), Julianne Meeter in the javelin (109 feet 9 inches), and the girls' 4x400-meter relay of Mandi and Macadia Calavan, Dallas Knoop, and Sabrina Reifscheider (4:15.99), all of whom placed ninth.

In addition, Ricker competed in the pole vault and 200, while Reifschneider continued her rapid improvement in the 300 hurdles.

Coach Larson had nothing but praise for his assistant coaches Jim Anderson, Carlos Garcia, Eden Miller and Wes Cook, as well as for all of the state qualifiers.

"Together we accomplished a lot this year, having re-written much of the top ten in the Sisters Track and Field record book," he said. "It is exciting to know that all of our qualifiers other than Aria Blumm and our exchange student Andreas Pedersen will return for more action next year."