Kentlake junior Zach Smith knows what it\u2019s like to run, jump and be free again.<\/p>\n
Two years ago, Smith wasn\u2019t able to do any of those things after overextending himself with weightlifting, track and basketball. The taxing load caused a stress fracture in his lower back and kept him out of action until his sophomore track season.<\/p>\n
Smith came full circle when he captured the long jump with a lifetime-best leap of 23 feet, 3 inches last Friday in the Class 4A Star Track state meet at Pasco High School\u2019s Edgar Brown Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout a year and a half ago, I didn\u2019t know if I\u2019d be able to jump again,\u201d Smith said. \u201cTo be able to jump now is great. Winning state is a goal I had since I started track.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was fortunate that I pulled my best stuff out for state. It took a lot of hard work, both physical therapy and core training, and just a lot of hours to come back. I couldn\u2019t run or jump for about a year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith, encouraged by a rhythmic, building clap by friends and teammates, got his personal-best effort on his final jump.<\/p>\n
\u201cI pretty much had first place already,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI went 22-8 on my first jump and the second-place guy was at 22-6. I saw the other guys were putting out some big marks, so I knew I had to go bigger.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crowd getting into it helped get me pumped.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith beat eventual runner-up Donovan Hunt, an Oak Harbor sophomore, by nine inches.<\/p>\n
Building his core was critical to his advancement as an athlete, Smith said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the injury almost made me better,\u201d he said. \u201cI got more drive and (the injury) made me want to work harder and it really strengthened my core. I never would\u2019ve spent so much time on my midsection.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Smith, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have been as good of an athlete without getting hurt. I had to work hard to get back. I\u2019m lucky to be jumping, really.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fishel flying high<\/b><\/p>\n
Kentwood junior Cody Fishel made some huge strides to finish second at state in the high jump, clearing a personal-best 6-7.<\/p>\n
Fishel was right behind the winner, Mead\u2019s Anthony Maricich, who went 6-8.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019d never attempted 6-7 this year and he set a personal-best with 6-5 last week at district,\u201d Kentwood coach Steve Roche said of Fishel. \u201cThat was huge for him to get 6-7. We were thrilled with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conquerors\u2019 teammate Devin St. Clair, a junior, registered a second-place finish in the 100 meters in 10.89 seconds, seven-tenths behind Ty Lang of Heritage. St. Clair also took third in the 200 at 21.87, just two-tenths behind Lang.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a kid who had never competed in a individual event at the state meet, I thought that was really good,\u201d Roche said of St. Clair. \u201cBut if you ask him, I\u2019m sure he\u2019d say he was disappointed. But he\u2019s a junior this year, and he\u2019ll be the top returning kid in those two events next year. So there\u2019s a lot to look forward to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kentwood took sixth place in the team standing with 28 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were overall very happy,\u201d Roche said. \u201cYou can\u2019t be upset scoring 28 points at the state meet essentially with three people who you have coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steven Warner of Kentwood jumped for a surprise third-place finish in the 110 hurdles (14.55).<\/p>\n
Tahoma senior Jono Lafler ended his high school career with a second-place showing in the 3,200 meters on Friday, posting a time of 9:18.61. He was happy with the finish despite chasing eventual winner Miles Unterreiner of Gig Harbor. Lafler was just 5.10 seconds behind Unterreiner.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal was to run even splits and let (Unterreiner) have the lead,\u201d Lafler said. \u201cThree laps into the race, he made a big move. So, if I tried to make a recovery, it would\u2019ve just killed me.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I stayed back and passed my future teammate (Decatur\u2019s) Justin Englund with about 100 meters to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lafler, who will run at Washington State, nearly ended his career on a down note on Saturday in the 1,600 where he finished last of 16 participants in the finals. But he gutted out his final three laps with a tight hamstring.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing into the last lap, my hamstring started tightening up,\u201d said Lafler, who was third moving for second when he almost put on the brakes with pain. \u201cIt almost felt like I pulled it. I limped the last lap. I basically hopped on one foot holding my hamstring. I just jogged.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was excruciating pain. But I didn\u2019t want to finish my last high school meet with a DNP (did not finish).\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Kent-Meridian senior Sean Harris was denied a state title in the 110 hurdles, again finishing second to Garfield\u2019s Stephone Jordan narrowly. Harris checked in at 14.43, just behind Jordan\u2019s 14.29 clocking.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Kent-Meridian freshman Brandon Harris finished third in the long jump at 22-5.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Kentwood junior Lindsey Moore took fifth in the girls high jump with a PR of 5-6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kentlake junior Zach Smith knows what it\u2019s like to run, jump and be free again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-23355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23355"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}