King's Track Continues State Dominance

The King’s track and field teams continued their decade-long runs of excellence, with the boys team winning the state 1A championship for the  fifth year in a row (and sixth time in 7 years) while the girls finished second to an impressive Bellevue Christian squad.

“It was a fun weekend,” coach Daunte Gouge said. The state championships were held Friday and Saturday at Eastern Washington University’s Cheney Stadium.

Senior Curtis Clauson was once again a one-man points-earning machine, winning the javelin, long jump, and the 300-meter hurdles. His javelin win at state was his third in a row; his long jump winner of 23 feet, 4.25 inches re-set his own school record and places him in the top 5 in state for any classification.

Clauson is part of a senior boys class that does not know what it feels like to lose a state championship. “We’re graduating a pretty amazing class,” Gouge said. “These guys have never lost a state meet … Not a lot of people can say that.”

They have also won handily, this year matching last year’s total of 74 team points. This year Hoquiam finished second with 48.

Junior Hap Emmons, who had battled pneumonia most of the season, won the 800 meters with a time of 1:56.87 and finished third in the 1600. The 4 x 400 team, anchored by Emmons, was able to take second off a strong run by senior Aaron VanGorkom. Senior Slater Hirst also took third in the javelin.  

The Knights ladies have not won a state title since 2004 but have found themselves fighting for the top spot on the podium year-in and year-out. Last year they finished third in state with 47 points. This year, two more team points was good enough for a second-place finish to Bellevue Christian.

“Bellevue Christian is a phenomenal team,” Gouge said. “They’ve got a group of stud girl hurdlers that scored a lot of points at the state meet. They’re a tough team to beat, but they’re graduating a lot of seniors.”

That bodes well for the Knights chances next year, particularly given the efforts of junior Karlie Storkson and sophomore Kaycee Creach. Storkson won the 200 and 400, took third in the 100, and was part of a 4 x 200 relay team that won state.

Her contribution in that event was the result of some fortuitous but risky thinking from the coaching staff. Generally running the anchor leg of the relay, for the state championships she was moved to the third spot.

“A lot of teams keep their fastest kid in the anchor leg position but the coaching staff talked about it and we thought it would give us a great advantage to put her in the third position, where we could get out of the mix,” Gouge said. “Junior Taylor Hauck ran the anchor leg for us and just ran really strong. Karlie gave us a lead and Taylor held onto it.

“A lot of people were coming up, wondering what we were doing, but in the long run it paid off. Those are the kind of things, when they work well the coaching staff looks great and if it had backfired we’d look like a bunch of idiots,” he joked.

With a relatively young squad keeping almost all of its core talent (Alex Ballenger, who finished 8th in discus, was the only senior to qualify for state), Gouge is optimistic for the team’s chances next year -- chances that could earn the girls their first team state title since 2004.

“I don’t want to say we’re loaded,” he cautioned. “But I definitely think that next year we’ll be in contention again for one of those top three girls spots.”

With two young but experienced teams returning serious talent, 2012 may be the Knights’ year to bring it all home. Until then, 1st and 2nd place team finishes should tide over a program that is a veritable 1A track and field powerhouse.