The Port Townsend High School track and field team competed against all of the 1A Olympic League, plus Mount Vernon Christian, at Coupeville on Thursday, March 30, and the inaugural meet on Coupeville’s new track was graced with mostly clear skies and mild winds.

“Though the addition of Mount Vernon Christian influenced the scoring results, the meet was a good early indicator of how the teams within the league stack up against one another,” PT track and field coach Ian Fraser said.

As Fraser had expected, the PT girls didn’t have enough athletes to compete for the team title, for which scoring is five deep across 18 events.

“Across the team, though, the girls saw some great performances, and a lot of improvement of seasonal and personal bests,” Fraser said.

The PT boys came in a close second to Coupeville, and in Fraser’s opinion, would likely have run away with the win, if the team hadn’t left without contesting the 3200-meter run or 4x400-meter relay, in order to catch the ferry.

Fraser rated the top performer of the meet as Port Townsend High School senior Seren Dances, who was named as an Athlete of the Week March 30 by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association.

Fraser noted Dances’ “comfortable victory” in the 110-meter hurdles (16.08), and a narrower win over last year’s fourth-place state championship medalist, Jacob Smith of Coupeville, 22.83-23.12.

“Seren put the time between his track victories to good use at the long jump pit, where he put up a new school record of 22 feet and 4 inches,” Fraser said.

Fraser remarked that the long jump mark leads Washington 1A by more than a foot, and is the second-best mark in Washington state in all divisions 1B-4A. Dances is also the only Washington state high school athlete to jump farther than 22 feet in more than a single competition this year.

“Perhaps the most exciting race of the day on the girls’ side was the matchup of Port Townsend’s Aubry Botkin and Coupeville’s Lindsey Roberts, two of the state’s top 100-meter hurdlers,” Fraser said. “Aubry got out with her best start of the season, accelerating well through the first three hurdles, and maintained a comfortable lead, until a four-step stumble on the last hurdle allowed Roberts to close the gap to within less than a quarter of a second. “Unfortunately, the timing system failed on that race, and what were likely the second- and third-fastest WIAA 1A times of the year went unrecorded.”

Fraser reported that Botkin also went on to place second in the long jump at 15 feet 1 inch, adding nearly a foot to her best jump from last year, and win the triple jump with 32 feet 2 inches in her first attempt at the event. As he pointed out, both marks place her within the top 20 1A competitors in Washington state this year.

“Brenna Franklin continued her emergence as a state contender in the discus, winning easily with a personal best throw of 93 feet, 10 inches,” Fraser said. “Sira Wines’ 99-foot, 10-inch throw won by a similarly comfortable 16-foot margin in the javelin.”

The PT boys also notched track victories in the 1600-meter, by Nathan Cantrell, and the 300-meter hurdles, by Tate Munich. Rookie senior Berkley Hill, competing in his first high jump competition, took home the win with a 5-foot 6-inch jump, and several close attempts at 5 feet 8 inches.

“Berkley is still very novice at the high jump,” Fraser said. “Though he has good raw jumping skills and attains great hip height, he isn’t yet creating proper rotational forces. Once he learns to maintain the forces of the curve through takeoff, he will likely clear well over 6 feet.”

PT track and field’s next competition is Saturday, April 8 at the Birger Solberg Invitational, with 35 other teams, in Bellingham.