Smart, Haakenson win district discus titles

Published 9:26 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

SEATTLE – A cool and collected Tanya Smart came away with a first-place win in the discus at last week’s district track meet. Her toss of 111 feet, 8 inches, was 2 feet, 8 inches, farther than her second-place opponent, Christin McDowell of Skyline, and 11 feet, 2 inches better than her Valley rival and KingCo League champion, Lindsey Peterson of Cedarcrest.

Smart came into the meet as the 3A KingCo League’s second seed, having thrown 109 feet, 11 inches at the league meet the week before.

At the Sea-King District meet, her first toss went 110 feet, longer than most everyone else. The wind was blowing hard, and the athletes’ discuses were either taking a quick swoop down, or a premature lift up before gaining any distance.

“With the wind I knew it would be hard for anyone to get around a 110 [feet]. After that I knew I had a chance to compete in the finals,” Smart said.

She is a senior this year and was glad to be able to go out with a bang, while having fun at the same time.

“I won league last year, and I thought that was great. You can’t help but get an ear-to-ear smile. It’s indescribable,” Smart said.

Ashley Van Oeveren took third place with a throw of 104 feet, 1 inch. Both will compete in the state meet.

Dan Haakenson also won the discus throw with a 175-foot, 2-inch effort, a personal best. This comes one week after he took home the league championship.

“The competition wasn’t that fierce at league,” Haakenson said. “It would have been better if I’d beaten someone at my level. I’m glad that I came this far.”

Haakenson said the competition will be greater at the state meet.

“There’s a guy who threw 168 [feet] in his league,” he said. “I think I’m going to throw 170. If I don’t win, I should at least get second.”

Ashley Wiegardt took second place in the long-jump competition by leaping 17 feet, 1 1/2 inches, a record for her.

“It was a personal best; that was what I was hoping to come out there and do. I was really excited,” Wiegardt said. “I pretty much counted on making it in the long jump. I was really focused.”

She did not place high enough to go to state in the triple jump, but it didn’t discourage her.

“I was already so excited to win the long jump,” Wiegardt said.

Jacob Waggoner, who was sixth in the preliminaries in the 800-meter with a time of 2:01, took fourth place in the final by running a 1:59 and will also go to state.

Nick Verbon made it to state in both the 100-meter high hurdles and the 300-meter high hurdles. He ran the 100-meter high hurdles in a time of 14.61 seconds and took third place, and finished the 300-meter high hurdles in 41 seconds, good for fifth place.

Jessica Scalzo played golf last year, so this was her first time at a district track meet. Her 11:27 two-mile time at league would have been good enough for sixth place last year at the district meet and sent her to state, but this year she ran 11:42 at district, taking eighth place and not advancing.

Scalzo barely missed qualifying for state in the mile with a time of 5:17.86. The sixth-place qualifier, Kathy Rice of Mount Rainier, ran 5:17.81

The girls’ 1,600-meter relay team of Kelly Fletcher, Kristen Berndt, Melissa Warren and Weigardt finished 10th and did not advance.

Dan Barry missed a spot at state by running a sixth-place time of 51:48 seconds in the 400-meter.

The state meet begins at 10 a.m. on Friday at Lincoln High School in Tacoma and continues through Saturday with events concluding at 8:30 p.m. Award ceremonies will start immediately afterward.