A lot of second-place finishes added up to one big first for the Kentwood High boys track & field team on Saturday at the prestigious Pasco Invitational.
Behind big days from standouts Devin St. Clair and Steven Warner, Kentwood put on a show at Edgar Brown Stadium in the 55-team invitational, bringing home first place with 62 points, just ahead of second-place Mead (57.5) and third-place North Central (44).
Kentlake, which took sixth place with 27 points, was the only other SPSL North team in competition.
Interestingly enough, however, the Conquerors didn’t win the title by, well, winning a lot of individual titles. Instead, Kentwood collected a bevy of second-place finishes and just one first in walking away with the team crown. The Kentwood contingent of St. Clair, Warner, Ricardo Tucker and Tim Pettit bagged the Conks’ lone gold of the day, doing so in the 4 x 400 relay with a time of 3:25.86.
Outside of that one first-place performance, there was plenty of silver lining Kentwood’s golden day.
“They were awesome. And the thing I appreciate about them most is they showed a warrior mentality,” Kentwood coach Steve Roche said of his team. “But it was kind of amazing to take so many seconds, especially at these elite-type meets.”
It wasn’t just the number of second-place finishes the Conquerors bagged, but how they went about accomplishing a handful of them. Of note were the performances of St. Clair and Warner. St. Clair took second in the 100 and 200-meter dashes, burning up the oval in 11.03 seconds and 21.65 seconds respectively. St. Clair delivered the invite’s top two preliminary times in both events – 10.84 and 21.71 – but wasn’t able to duplicate those numbers in the finals.
Warner pulled part of a page from St. Clair’s book later in the day, taking second in the 110 hurdles, clocking in at 14.68. Moments earlier, however, Warner had posted the top time in the prelims (14.65). He also took second in the 300 hurdles with a time of 39.51.
“They were both just amazing,” Roche said.
Warner and St. Clair weren’t the only Conquerors bagging second-place finishes. Cody Fishel chipped in one more in the high jump, uncorking a leap of 6-feet-six inches.
The Pasco Invitational is considered the biggest regular-season meet of the season and draws top-notch teams from around the Northwest.
“It’s huge to win this,” Roche said. “The kids all knew going in that this was the most prestigious meet, and pulls the best schools from Washington, Oregon and Idaho … in some ways, it’s an all-star meet.”
The Kentwood girls added a fourth-place team finish, which helped the Conquerors also bring home the combined trophy.
“It’s the biggest trophy I have seen in my life,” Roche quipped.
And while Kentwood set the gold standard in the team race, Kentlake’s Zach Smith continued to raise the bar in the long jump. Smith, who won the state title last spring with a leap of 23-3, soared well past that on Saturday. The senior standout uncorked a jump of 24-01.50, which proved to be more than a foot better than anyone else and easily good enough to secure gold.
Kentlake’s 4 x 100 relay team of Smith, Cody Arp, Tayler Angevine and Matthew Cowan also snagged a silver finish, clocking in at 43.12, just a split second ahead of Kentwood.
Dallin Grover added a third-place finish for Kentlake in the high jump, springing to 6-feet-2 inches.
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