by Steve Wilburm, Special to the Sounder

Ten Lopez students qualified for the State 1B track meet in Cheney last weekend by placing in the top three for their event in the tri-district meet at Kings High School in Shoreline.  

The boys 4X400 team last year placed second at state and broke a 20-year-old school record with the help of 400 meter record holder Terrell Carter and teammates Jordan Smith, Keaton Ferris and Sebastian Lasbo. All but Sebastian Lasbo graduated last year, so this year’s team was mostly brand new, and consisted of Emmett Lawrence, Jordan Haber, Tucker Hoffman, Sebastian Lasbo and alternate Charlie O’Neil. This didn’t stop them from running the fastest time at state (3:37.16), and beating last year’s school record time by nearly eight seconds. Not to be outdone, the girls 4X400 team of Ruthie DeGraaf, Erin Wilbur, Jamie Cummins and Lyra Dalton also smashed the girls 4X400 record with a time of 4:34, 10 seconds off the old record and good enough for a third place upset.

In individual running events, Lasbo closed out a phenomenal high school career with a personal best time in the mile of 4:40.13 for second place and a blistering 2:02 800, easily beating the second place finisher by more than five seconds.

The other senior on the team, Haber, competed in both the 110m high hurdles and 300m intermediate hurdles, placing third in the 110s, beating a long time rival from Grace Academy, and setting a new personal and school record in the 300 intermediates at 43.94 seconds. Sophomore Lawrence ran his best ever 400m race in 54.56 seconds for a fifth place finish against an older and better seasoned field. Freshman Jamie Cumming ran an excellent 100m hurdles time of 19.21, good enough for 6th place against a much more seasoned field.

Laura Strom is the two time defending state high jump champ and she won yet again, followed by teammate Lyra Dalton in second place in a repeat performance of two years ago. Strom has yet to be defeated in state competition in the high jump.

Overall, the boys team placed 9th and the girls placed 5th out of 24 teams competing. Individually, Dalton was the 5th highest scoring girl and Lasbo the 10th highest scoring boy in the 1B competition.