Chiefs track teams fall to Chiawana

MOSES LAKE - Like the weather, sunny here, cloudy there, the Moses Lake Chiefs track teams saw some bright performances amidst some mixed results on Thursday.

The Chiefs played host to a Columbia Basin Big Nine meet featuring themselves, Chiawana and Eisenhower and Moses Lake would drop both the girls (93-56) and boys (87-54) decisions to the Riverhawks.

Chiawana would split their day, losing to Eisenhower's teams.

The big win for the Moses Lake boys came in the 110-meter hurdles when Timothy Johnson (17.61), Cesar Sanabia (18.3), Zach Walker (18.67), and Allen Park (18.85) claimed a top four sweep.

Additionally, Justyn Simmons qualified for the district meet in the long jump behind his second place finish yesterday, with a leap of 19-10.25.

Sophomore Lowell Kirkwood is also headed to the first post season meet in Yakima in the 1,600-meter run after yesterday's 4:52.97.

"Being at home I was a little disappointed that it was a home meet and I expected the times to be a little better," MLHS boys coach Kevin Whittall said. "Everybody that we could put in races we did and tried to put the kids in the best spots. We will be working hard with only two meets left to get the district times so the pressure will be on. It would have been nice if we could have qualified more athletes coming out of own meet."

Also claiming a second place finish for the Chiefs boys was Johnson (300-meter hurdles, 44.96),

Brandon Bradley took third in the discus (126-04), Cameron Ballard did the same in the high jump (5-08), as did Jared Crowell in the triple jump (38-03).

Magie Munoz was the big sparkplug for the girls, winning the 200-meter (27.54) and 400-meter (1:02.37) runs.

"We performed really well with Magie being a dual winner and she brought her times down in the 200," Chiefs girls coach Nicki Weiland said.

London Cleverly finished third in the 400-meter run with a 1:03.54.

Munoz was a part of the second-place 4x100-meter relay team (Munoz, Cleverly, Keiley Garcia, and Kayla Grigg, 51.65), and the 4x200-meter relay team (Munoz, Cleverly, Selina Koon, and Caylah Lunning, 1:53.71).

The 4x100 team is just four-tenths off of the school record in the event set in 1987, Weiland said.

Jordan Loera three third-place finishes in the javelin (113-08), long jump (15-03.5), and triple jump (33-01.50).

Trumping Loera in the long jump was Lunning, who won the event with a 16-02.50.

"We still have a little ways to go," Weiland said. "Caylah winning the long jump was surprising. We are still putting kids in different events and seeing that 'wow they can do this.' We are still tapping into different events with different kids so we are still playing around before districts and finding out the kids are doing awesome things."

Eighteen athletes qualify per event at districts and eight advance to regionals.

Weiland believes a possible 10 Chiefs could qualify for the postseason.