Ephrata boys win Quincy Invitational, Royal girls second

QUINCY — The Ephrata boys won just three events at the 15-team Quincy Invitational on Saturday, but carried the day with depth points, winning by 20 points over second-place Omak.

Royal’s Maggie Delay won both the 100-meter hurdles (15.73 seconds) and the triple jump (34 feet, 7.5 inches) to lead the Knights to a second-place finish in the predominantly 2A girls meet.

Like the Tigers boys, the Ephrata girls used a strong effort from the rank-and-file. Karen Billingsley defeated the 3200-meter field by 23 seconds with a time of 12:26.39. Tiger hurdler McCall DeChenne (46.29) won the 300 intermediate hurdles and finished second in the 100 hurdles (15.94).

It was a day for racing, under cloudy skies with no wind and the Columbia Basin track and field athletes stepped up. Billingsley is coming off a solid appearance at the 2A state cross country. The Ephrata junior led from start-to-finish in the 3200, eventually pulling away from Royal’s Kay Lester, who was a distant second.

“I felt real good. With track, it’s kind of nice to know where you’re at all the time, as compared to cross where there are elevation changes,” said Billingsley. “(The CWAC) is pretty competitive with East Valley and Selah, so it’s nice to come here where’s there’s strong competition to work against. I have a lot of good friends with the distance runners, we all suffer together, which makes some good bonds.”

Quincy’s Bryn Heikes won both the 800 (2:35.22) and the 1600 meters (5:33.23) with two strong performances. Royal’s Kay Lester was in the mix, finishing second in the 1600 (5:40.01) and the 3200 (12:49.89), as well as third in the 800 (2:40.80).

McCall, who’s just an Ephrata sophomore, likes the hurdles to be sure. But she also likes the team aspect of the 4x200 relay where she joined forces with Mya Spencer, who was second in both the 200 and 400 meters, Nikola Brzezny and Hailey Miller. The Tigers turned a 1:47.43 to finish second against a quick Cashmere team.

“We’ve been working on our exchanges, which I thought were pretty good today,” she said. “I like running the curve because you can catch people coming off the stager if you’re faster than they are. We started in lane 3 today, which means everybody is in front of us and you can see them and that really helps.”

Quincy shot putter Mashayla Schaapman bested the field with a mark of 36-5 and placed third in the discus (97-10). Royal’s Jennifer Ledezman had the best discus throw of the day, marking at 103-6 for the win.

Almira/Coulee-Hartline senior Berlyn Hunt showed some shake and bake from the 1B ranks, winning the Javelin (122-1) and the long jump (16-1)

Boys meet

Ephrata’s Ethan Green won the 3200 (9:48.61). Tiger teammate James Hunter defeated the javelin field, which turned out to be an all-Columbia Basin top three. Hunter won in 158-0. Tyson Thornton of Quincy (147-4) and Carlos Solorio of Quincy (147-4) were second and third, respectively.

Ephrata’s Anthony Evans (51.87) won the 400 meter race and teammate Michael Novitskiy (54.54) finished third.

Royal hurdler Arturo Villa stepped up with a fine showing in the 110’s, finished second in 16.06.

“I like competing against the bigger schools, it’s a big lift when you can come in here and win,” said Villa. “I like the atmosphere in track. Everyone is competing hard against each other, but everyone’s friendly. Especially at the finish line, everyone tells each other good job. Everybody wants the same thing and you have to respect that.”