Members of the Hood River Valley High School boys track and field team ride atop a Hood River Fire and EMS truck through downtown Hood River Monday afternoon as part of a victory parade held to celebrate the team’s first-place finish at the OSAA 5A track and field state championship last weekend in Eugene. It is the first track and field title in the school’s history.
Members of the Hood River Valley High School boys track and field team ride atop a Hood River Fire and EMS truck through downtown Hood River Monday afternoon as part of a victory parade held to celebrate the team’s first-place finish at the OSAA 5A track and field state championship last weekend in Eugene. It is the first track and field title in the school’s history.
At the risk of going all Marty McFly and Doc Brown on you, let’s briefly go back to the future with Donnie Herneisen, Hood River Valley High School’s track and field coach. Herneisen and his staff worked overtime to prepare the Eagles for their historic run at last weekend’s Class 5A state championships at historic Hayward Field in Eugene. But that’s not what they should have been doing.
Instead of packing suitcases for a trip to Days Inn, they should have packed their proverbial briefcases and gone before the school board — to make a deal. A Monty Hull blockbuster: If the HRV boys win the state championship, not only will the district have to replace the school’s aging running track, it’ll have to put a Jumbotron at the south end of the Henderson Community Stadium complex.
After all, the Eagles had all the elements of a title contender: solid sprinters and distance runners, a hurdler, a thrower, horizontal and vertical jumpers, and a relay team. However, similar to HRV’s worn, cracked, rubber asphalt oval, Herneisen has been around for a while. He knows there’s a fine line to winning championships: prolonged mid-season slumps; bad grade reports; disqualified relays; or even a broken finger. Each of those, and more, can derail title hopes. It’s not a good idea to gamble against track and field karma.
On the other hand, this championship run has been in the works for some time – albeit never a sure bet. In 2013, an Eagle freshman took Hayward by surprise, becoming the first Oregon ninth-grader since Jaclyn Espinoza of Regis to start a four-year win streak in the discus. A Barack Obama second term later, and an all-grown-up Sebastian Barajas capped his high school career with a four-peat. Barajas, ignoring the broken index finger on his throwing hand, added a second place in the shot put to give his team 18 points.
Also four years ago, another HRV freshman be-bopped around Hayward Field, seemingly without a care in the world. If Barajas is the Eagles’ Morgan Freeman (star quality, unassuming presence, yet pumping out one Oscar-worthy performance after another), Parker Kennedy is their Mick Jagger. He’s out there, living on the edge, in ways only a pole vaulter and hurdler can. Behind the sunglasses is an intense competitor whose decathlete versatility is on display front and center. Last weekend, Kennedy vaulted 15-feet to win on fewer misses (10 points), added a runner-up finish in the intermediate hurdles (eight points), and ran a leg on HRV’s third-place 400-meter relay.
Also on the relay were two other seniors who, if only to keep the music virtuoso theme going for another paragraph, were HRV’s Eric Claptons. Reliable, steady, always improving are adjectives that fit Tyrone Stintzi and Parker Irusta perfectly. Stintzi wasn’t even out for track four years ago, but his third place in the high jump and seventh in the 100 added eight points to HRV’s 2016 team score. Irusta was on that 2013 squad, getting a Hayward initiation as a member of the 4x100 and 4x400 relays. Four years later, Irusta was anchoring the Eagles’ short relay, placing third in the 200, fourth in the 100 and seventh in the long jump for 13 points.
Adding the other seven individual points (fourth 3000, seventh 1500) to HRV’s winning total of 70 was senior distance runner Justin Crosswhite, whose tall, lanky build is not exactly conducive to the windy Gorge. But Crosswhite’s development as a distance runner belies the HRV program since 2013: bigger, stronger, faster, and fueled by a never-say-never attitude.
Which, in a round-about way, gets us back to the original premise. There were two others from HRV who competed at state. Their contributions might go unnoticed in some circles, but they’re not lost on the coaches.
Senior Quinn Fetkenhour, who ran the 3000 and finished a non-placing ninth, represents all the Eagle athletes past and present who endured countless workouts. They pushed teammates in practice — in Fetkenhour’s case, continually nipping at Crosswhite’s heels as they cranked out another 600 split under the gaze of distance coach Brandon Bertram.
The fourth member of HRV’s 4x100 relay was Gabriel Campos-Davis, a sophomore who found a passion for running at Hood River Middle School and has the red cinder dust at the bottom of his shoe closet at home to prove it. Campos-Davis, who also ran in the 400 prelims at state, represents the future of HRV track and field. That future includes the numerous grade school and middle school kids, who start out just like him, emulating those who have gone before them.
That said, a resurfaced facility will be a source of community pride for that next generation of track and field athletes; a Jumbotron would probably be overkill. In reality, all that’s needed are people who do things with passion, who aren’t afraid to embrace the future, and who are willing to work hard to make their dreams come true.
(Former News Publisher Joe Petshow is a self-proclaimed track and field nerd.)
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