The Glacier Bears faced their most challenging competition of the season at the track and field state championships in Palmer this week. The boys team placed eighth and the girls team placed 16. Fourteen-year-old Avery Williamson finished fifth in the girls Division II (DII) 100-meter dash, and 16-year-old Carson Crager finished sixth in the DII 300-meter hurdles.
“It was a lot of fun,” said Crager. “On the first day for preliminaries, I just felt tired.” The team had driven for more than 12 hours up to Palmer the night before. On the second day, he said he felt much better. “I just wanted to redeem myself for the finals,” said Crager. He was impressed and excited to compete at the state championships, because Crager has placed first in hurdles almost every meet this season, including at regionals. He said he wasn’t used to seeing people ahead of him. “I was happy with making it to state. I thought it was a good way to end the season,” he said.
At the state championship, 15-year-old Wesley Verhamme placed second in DII schools for discus and broke personal records in both shot put and discus. He said he had to do his usual ‘mad-man-warm-up routine,’ receiving several Facebook messages from other athletes, who asked him, “do you always look like you want to kill someone when you warm up?” said Verhamme. Overall, Verhamme is ranked 11th in the state for shot put and 13th for discus.
As the season comes to a halt, while most of the team is working part-time jobs or relaxing for the summer, Verhamme is the lone member of the team practicing at the field every day of the week. Thirty shot put and discus practice throws each, every day are necessary, he said, because he’s been invited to compete at the Brian Young Invitational this month in Anchorage. Only those who rank in the top 16 in Alaska are invited. Verhamme said he will be competing against athletes twice his size, who can throw several feet farther. He mentioned one football player who can push through an entire line of practice dummies at once.
“Everyone that I’ve talked to says it’s like a meet, but there’s no pressure because the season is over,” said Verhamme.
Sitka’s head coach Jeremy Strong first considered recruiting Verhamme for the post-season event, when he ranked second in both shot put and discus among DII schools. But after a rocky performance midway through the season, Verhamme was unsure if he was still selected.
“I thought I missed my opportunity. I was bummed out about it,” said Verhamme, “I didn’t hear anything about it until regionals.”
On the Wednesday night before regionals, Strong sent Glacier Bears’ coach James Blilie a text confirming Verhamme’s spot at invitationals.
“I will be wearing a Haines jersey but I’ll be competing with Sitka and Juneau athletes,” he said. “It’s kind of like you’ve worked this hard. Now everybody is competing together to find out who is the best,” said Verhamme, who was set to leave Thursday, May 31 at 5 a.m. for invitationals. Verhamme said he has to pay his own way to Juneau, but the flight to Anchorage is covered by the organizers.