Haines High School senior Keegan Sundberg and junior Bailey Stuart repeated as event champions at last weekend’s Capital City Invitational in Juneau.
Sundberg took first place in the boys’ 400 meters and Stuart won the girls’ discus. Both Glacier Bears also earned top honors in those events at the season-opening track meet in Haines the previous week.
A larger field of schools did little to deter Sundberg, whose time of 53.98 bested the runner-up from Ketchikan by nearly a second.
Stuart also was dominant, with a heave of 91-04. No other competitor could muster a throw that reached 83 feet.
Overall, the Haines girls were fifth of nine teams. Scoring tallies were Thunder Mountain, 165 points; Ketchikan, 96; Juneau-Douglas, 78; Sitka, 64; Haines, 46; Petersburg, 44; Yakutat, 10; Gustavus, 4; and Skagway, 1.
The scoring for boys’ teams was Thunder Mountain, 130; Ketchikan, 129.5; Juneau-Douglas, 83; Petersburg, 79.5; Sitka, 64; Haines and Thorne Bay, 12; and Gustavus, 2.
Several Glacier Bears missed the meet due to their participation at the All-State Solo and Ensemble Festival in Anchorage.
Strong performances in the throwing events propelled the Haines girls. Along with Stuart’s first place in the discus, fellow junior Autumn Gross picked up a third-place finish.
Gross and Stuart placed second and third, respectively, in the shot put, and junior Destinee Cowart was eighth.
The girls had their best running results in the 400 meters, as senior Jennie Humphrey notched second place in 1:10.37 and senior Natalia Taylor followed with a fourth-place time of 1:15.25.
For the boys, Sundberg also was impressive in the 1,600 meters, posting a time of 4:53.97 for fifth place, trailing only Class 4A runners from Juneau-Douglas and Ketchikan.
The Glacier Bears next have a weekend off before the May 22-23 regional championship meet at Thunder Mountain.