South Medford boys cruise in Cali
Published 11:34 am Monday, March 27, 2023
- South Medford's Andrew Walker, shown winning the 100-meter dash at the Crater Twilight meet, helped set new meet records last Friday in the 100 and 4x100 relays at the Eagle Classic Relays in California.
Odds are that anytime South Medford senior Andrew Walker is on the track, there’s a good chance of a meet record falling.
The two-time sprint state champion lived up to that ability Friday night at the Eagle Classic Relays in Cottonwood, California.
Walker was part of not one but two meet records during the 22-school event, helping the South Medford boys win the team title in runaway fashion over host West Valley High.
Last year’s Oregon champion in the 100- and 200-meter dashes at the Class 6A state meet, Walker broke the meet record in the boys 100 with his winning time of 10.78 seconds.
West Valley’s Ian Reynolds was runner-up in the race at 11.37
Not finished making his mark on the event just yet, Walker also joined seniors Brodie Leslie, Deacon Edgar and Benji Krebs in dusting off another meet record in the boys 4×100 relay. The Panther quartet cruised into first place in 43.60 seconds — finishing a full second ahead of runner-up West Valley (44.62).
Bolstered by those record-breaking marks, South Medford was a runaway winner for the boys team title by earning 101.78 overall points. West Valley scored 54.14 and Enterprise had 48.
South Medford’s girls team finished seventh overall with 26 points after Shasta set the tone in first place with 69.33 points.
In other top individual efforts by the Panthers, South Medford senior DJ Scott won the 1,600 in a personal-best 4 minutes, 51.82 seconds, while Edgar finished first in the long jump at 18 feet, 11.5 inches, Leslie placed first in the triple jump at 38-2 and freshman Jake Von Strahl won the high jump (5-10).
The latter three marks were all season records.
Freshman Cade Siewert was second in the boys long jump (18-9) and Krebs was third in the 100 (11.45), and the Panthers dominated the 4×400 relay and short medley relay for victories.
In the 4×400 relay, Krebs and Leslie were joined by Jazz Hernandez and Tanner Tuggle in finishing with a winning time of 3:35.97, while the short medley relay (100-100-200-400) saw a lineup of Leslie, Krebs, Edgar and Hernandez win in 1:38.87.
Olivia Smith and Paige Schiffer scored the lone victories for the South Medford girls team, with Smith claiming the 100 hurdles in a personal-best 16.94 while Schiffer cleared 4-8 to win the high jump.
SoftballASHLAND 10, MAZAMA 8: At Ashland, freshman Amara Lowe had a triple and three RBIs to help propel Ashland to its first victory under head coach Jen Mendenhall last Friday.
Freshman Savannah Elster was 2-for-4 with two runs and two RBIs, notching her own triple, and junior Tessa Hobein went 2-for-4 with three runs and one RBI to lead the Grizzlies (1-2).
Glory Pistole, a junior, earned the pitching victory with a complete-game effort and added her own 2-for-4 outing at the plate with two doubles, two runs and one RBI as Ashland racked up 10 hits overall.
Mazama 100 140 2 — 8 12 5
Ashland 520 300 x — 10 10 1
Davis and Estes; Pistole and Theobald. W — Pistole. L — Davis. 2B — M: Davis; A: Pistole 2. 3B — A: Lowe, Elster.