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| Mark Nelke |
Memories from a wild weekend in mostly dry Boise
Lake City's girls track team destroyed the competition to win its second straight 5A team title at Bronco Stadium.
Just when you thought you saw it all from Caleb Cazier, the Timberlake senior took two more memorable laps around the BSU track to help the Tigers win the 3A team title.
A few miles away, a Lake City baseball team that had only been to state once before came oh-so-close to winning a state championship.
And oh, by the way, Kootenai's girls won their third straight 1A track championship.
The rains that shortened the state 3A softball tournament in Coeur d'Alene mostly missed Boise, save for a couple of brief showers on Friday, and a thunderstorm Thursday night well after the day's events had been completed.
LAKE CITY track coach Kelly Reed took sprinter Meagan Garcia out of one of the relays and put her in the open 100, figuring the extra points in the 100 could come in handy. As it turns out, the Timberwolves might have been able to split their team in half and finished 1-2.
Lake City won six events, finished second in three others, scored points in 16 of 18 events and racked up 118 points. Twin Falls was second with 69.5.
"I don't care if I coach 'til I'm 133, I will never coach a girls track team that good again," Reed said.
"It's a lifetime experience that you can't go back on," said LC sophomore Sasha Tucker, who was second in the 400, and ran on two winning relay teams (4x100, 4x400) and one runner-up (4x200). Unfortunately, Tucker won't be around next year to help the T-Wolves try for a three-peat, as she said she's moving to Ogden, Utah, to live with her mom.
CAZIER, HE of the injured left hamstring, looked like he was done when he pulled up early in the 100-meter finals, limped home to an eighth-place (last) finish, then plopped face down on the track just past the finish line for a few moments.
Before they could get the chalk out, he got up, grabbed his sweats and stormed off across the infield. Interestingly, he wasn't limping.
Cazier was well off the lead in the 400, but starting his kick somewhere near Nampa, he passed runners one by one until he passed the leader just before the tape. He limped home eighth in the 200 as well, but as the anchor in the 4x400, with the state title on the line, came from way back to win at the finish line.
"He's just amazing," Timberlake coach Brian Kluss said.
OUR LAST memory is of Joe Partington, a Lake City High teacher and coach. Down on the infield at Bronco Stadium to congratulate Lake City's girls track team on their state title, he noticed nearby a runner from Jerome, on his knees on the infield, head in his hands and buried in a pile of clothes on the blue field turf.
His team had just been disqualified in the 4x400 relay.
Partington lifted up the rope that separates the parents and coaches from the athletes, walked over to the boy, took a knee, put his arm around him and offered some words of encouragement to a youngster he no doubt had never met.
"That's Joe," said someone nearby. "Always trying to help out."
Mark Nelke is sports editor of the Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via
e-mail at mnelke@cdapress.com.
