Taking some advice from state champion thrower Kordell Pillans of Kodiak, Haines High School senior Matthew Green added a whopping three feet to his best shot put, capturing third at last weekend’s state championship in Anchorage with a toss of 42-8.5.
Seven of eight Haines High School track team members qualified for finals at the championship meet at Dimond High School.
Green, 17, and classmate Nattaphon “Ice” Wangyot led the Glacier Bears, each notching a third-place and a fifth-place finish.
Green said he spoke with Pillans the day before the competition, where Pillans (whose throw of 55-7 won the statewide, large-school crown) gave him tips about getting into a low position and swinging his lead arm. (Luke Johnson of Nikiski’s 46-7 put won the small-schools event.)
“I was really surprised,” Green said. “(Dimond) also has a pretty nice shot put ring that I liked, too.” Green said he added six feet this season to his best put last year.
Green also set a personal record in discus (125-10), also adding three feet to his best previous throw to place fifth. Green said he hit 125 feet in practice this year. “I just got a good throw off. All season I hadn’t gotten a good throw off in competitions.”
Wangyot’s finishes, third in the 200-meter run (27.3 seconds) and fifth in the 100-meters (13.41 seconds), were off her personal records. Tanner Ealum of Anchorage Christian won the events with times of 24.76 and 12.22, respectively.
The meet drew media attention to Wangyot, apparently the first openly transgender student athlete to participate in an individual event at an Alaska state championship.
Track coach Keri Ewing said he and superintendent Rich Carlson shielded Wangyot from reporters so she would be able to concentrate on competition. Alaska Family Action, a conservative group, held a press conference at Dimond Friday calling for Alaska’s school activities association to change policy and require athletes to compete in the category of their biological sex at birth.
Wangyot said after the meet that media attention didn’t affect her performance. She said she was tired at the meet from the long van ride from Haines and that she ran faster at regionals because she felt pushed along there by a top Sitka runner.
Senior Casey Bradford capped his career with a fifth in the 400-meter run (54.98) and seventh in the 200 meters (24.29). The winning times in those events were 51.64 (Frederich Onochie, Anchorage Christian) and 22.81 (Holden Quinn, Anchorage Christian), respectively.
Bradford also scored points in the discus with a personal best throw of 120-8 on his final attempt, placing seventh. “To hit 120 on your last throw, on your last meet, everyone was pretty excited about that,” said coach Ewing.
Junior Jacob Stigen finished sixth in the 110-meter hurdles (17.86), an impressive showing considering he has competed in the event only a few times, and finished one second faster than his time in the preliminary heat. Noah Leaf of Cook Inlet Academy won the event in 16.27.
Stigen also finished eighth in the 300-meter hurdles in 46.19, compared to the winning time of Ben Eielson’s Kalib Dunlap (41.23).
In girls competition, senior Destinee Cowart finished fifth in discus (89-3) and classmate Bailey Stuart placed sixth (87-8). Amir Williams of Anchorage Christian won with a throw of 111-4.
Senior Autumn Gross placed 8th in shot put with a throw of 29-3. Hannah Edmunds of Anchorage Christian won with a throw of 29-3.
Haines boys and girls squads scored 14 points each, landing them each about midway through the field of 31 small schools, Ewing said.