The Dalles’ Zoe Dunn crosses the finish line during the 5A girls 4x100m relay race at the OSAA State Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene on May 20.
The Dalles’ Zoe Dunn crosses the finish line during the 5A girls 4x100m relay race at the OSAA State Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene on May 20.
Zoe Dunn entered last weekend’s Class 5A state track and field meet at opulent Hayward Field all wide-eyed, but by the time she and her teammates left two days later, it was The Dalles junior and her sophomore teammates who caught the attention of many.
Dunn placed second in the long jump and triple jump and anchored two placing relays to help the Riverhawks to seventh place overall with 29 points. Crescent Valley edged North Salem for the team crown, 67-66, by winning the meet’s final event, the 4x400-meter relay.
For most of that race, The Dalles was playing the role of spoiler for Crescent Valley’s championship hopes. The Riverhawks, with the baton in Dunn’s hand, were leading the Raiders with one lap to go. But Crescent Valley’s Ava McKee, who earlier in the meet had won the 400 and 800, used a 58-second quarter to pull out the three-second win – and earn the 10 points for first place as the Raiders surpassed North Salem.
“She ended up passing me right from the beginning,” Dunn said of McKee. “I saw myself on the screen — me and the CV girl were on the screen and then she started to accelerate, and I was going off the screen.
“I thought, ‘Oh, now I need to speed up,’ when I noticed how far I was getting behind.”
Dunn’s appearance on the looming 5,080-square-foot video screen helped her to a 62-second lap and propelled the Riverhawks to a season-best time of 4 minutes, 2.12 seconds. “I was super excited,” she said, as she and her teammates — Lilly Adams, Madelyn Harrison, and Amyrah Hill — celebrated all the way to the victory stand.
“We had about two hours before we started,” Dunn said of the foursome’s pre-race jitters, which played out on Hayward’s practice track outside the stadium. “We were all just bonding just over how nervous we were. We were practicing exactly how fast we were going to come out of the handoffs.”
The foursome also had some handoff practice earlier in the meet, as they ran a season-best 50.85 in the 4x100 relay — for fourth place. The competitive race had two photo finishes. Corvallis, the race’s winner, and second-place finisher, Thurston, were each timed in 50.22. Third place Silverton and The Dalles were timed in 50.85.
“That’s never happened before. That was exciting to be a part of that. Two weeks ago, we broke into the 51s,” Dunn said of the short relay. “And we were all really excited about it. And now this.”
Dunn had a busy Saturday. She was supposed to be triple jumping at the same time of the 4x100, but the Class 6A competition took longer than expected. “I had three events Saturday and I was a lot more stressed for them, especially for the relays,” Dunn said.
The delay allowed Dunn to compete in the relay first and not interrupt either event — which is nothing new to the multi-event athlete. “I ended up competing in the relay first. (At first) it was very nerve-wracking — there were a bunch of us in the triple who also were in the relay.”
The adrenaline from the short relay carried over to the triple jump for Dunn. “I was super warmed up, so I scratched my first jump,” she said, before moving back her mark on the runway. “I got my second one in.”
Dunn bounded 35-feet, 10.25 inches in the flights to make the final as the No. 3 seed. On her last attempt in finals, she jumped 36-5.75 to move from third to second place. Breanna Raven of Thurston won at 37-5.75.
The runner-up finish matched her placing the day before in the long jump. “I did pretty good; I didn’t PR, but I was still in the 17s which was what I wanted,” Dunn said of her best jump of 17-4. (Raven also won the long jump at 18 feet.) “It was fun to be able to compete (at Hayward).”
The relay finishes may have provided some incentive for next season, when The Dalles will drop to Class 4A. “We’ve all collectively agreed to start working out and start practicing at the beginning of winter — getting into the gym,” Dunn said.
And that may lead to more head-turning performances a year from now.
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