Highlights, top moments from 24th Nike Jesuit Twilight Relays

The 24th edition of the Nike Jesuit Twilight Relays took place Friday night in Southwest Portland, with eight meet records

Lincoln sophomore Ellery Lincoln moved to No. 2 on Oregon's all-time list in the girls mile with her second victory in the Elite Mile. / René Ferrán

The 24th edition of the Nike Jesuit Twilight Relays took place Friday night in Southwest Portland, with a national record set in the boys 3,200 meters and eight meet records.

Here are some of the highlights from one of the Pacific Northwest's top invitationals.

'A full-circle moment' for Lincoln sophomore as she repeats as Elite Mile girls champion

Lincoln sophomore Ellery Lincoln found herself in the same place she was a year ago — standing in front of the Cronin Field grandstands, holding the champion placard after winning the girls Elite Mile at the Nike Jesuit Twilight Relays.

But during the 12 months that elapsed since her coming-out party at last year’s meet to breaking the meet record she set the year before by running 4 minutes, 39.37 seconds, she encountered a whirlwind of events that she escaped only a few weeks ago.

“It just feels like a full-circle moment,” she said. “Honestly, it’s really special to do it here, because this was a pretty magical meet last year, and to come back here after a really tough year, it just feels like … I can’t think of a better word than special.”

After her Twilight win, Lincoln went to the Class 6A state meet a month later, where besides winning the 1,500-meter title, she contracted whooping cough from one of her teammates, sending her into a decline that took her months from which to recover. 

She had recurring breathing problems that plagued her throughout the cross country season in the fall — Lincoln still managed to place third at state and 10th at Northwest Regionals — but felt she was close to 100% during the indoor track season, when she placed 10th in the junior mile at the Millrose Games in New York.

But when she returned to New York a month later to compete at Nike Indoor Nationals, she came down with pneumonia, forcing her out of that meet and sidelining her for two weeks.

“And I was really devastated, because I was just starting to feel like I was in shape to start running fast again,” Lincoln said.

She didn’t return to the track until the Oregon Relays in early April, anchoring the Cardinals’ distance medley relay, and ran her first individual race a week later at Sherwood’s Need for Speed Invitational, when she ran a 2:10.31 in the 800.

She was ready for her moment in the sun Friday evening. She bided her time running a stride or two behind Lakeridge senior Chloe Huyler for the first 3½ laps before making her move entering the final curve.

“I knew if I was there at 600, I could win the race,” Lincoln said. “I just had to relax and run within myself.”

Her goal entering the race was to break 4:40 for the mile, moving to No. 2 on the state’s all-time list behind former Olympian and world champion Maria Mutola, and now, with that goal out of the way, she’s eager to see what happens the rest of the year.

“To do it in my first real mile out, it’s just, the sky’s the limit,” Lincoln said. “The sickness was the thing holding me back, but I think I’m ready for a really special season, and really a comeback season, for sure.”

And true to her nature, she found a silver lining in everything that had passed over the past year.

“I’m glad my season’s picking up speed a bit later because I really want to run well in June at these big championship meets,” she said. “That's really where my focus is, because that’s where people run fast. So, I’m just so overwhelmed with happiness and gratefulness to the people around me who have supported me throughout this whole year.”

Crater's Tostenson comes up just short of breaking 4-minute barrier outdoors in boys Elite Mile

Crater's Josiah Tostenson (309) / René Ferrán

When Josiah Tostenson was 10 years old, he had his photo taken with one of his distance running idols, two-time Olympic medalist and former Central Catholic great Galen Rupp.

“Galen is a huge icon to just running in general, but to the state and its history, so I always looked up to Galen,” Tostenson said.

One thing Rupp never accomplished during his time wearing Rams cardinal and gold was breaking the 4-minute barrier in the mile — something Tostenson accomplished indoors in February.

In fact, only one Oregon high schooler had ever gone sub-four in the mile outdoors — Matthew Maton ran 3:59.38 in May 2015, a month after the then-Summit senior left the Storm program. 

That was the time Tostenson had in mind when he prepared all week for the boys Elite Mile, thinking he’d have a chance to go mano a mano with national high school indoor mile record-holder and Mercer Island senior Owen Powell, who beat Tostenson by less than a second at that February meet in Boston.

But Powell scratched from the meet midweek because of a minor injury, and with Tostenson’s teammate, Tayvon Kitchen, eying the national high school 3,200-meter record, Tostenson would have to rely on his pacers in a solo effort to become the first Oregon prepster to wear his school colors while running a sub-four mile.

When Tostenson went through the midway point at 1:59.42, he thought it was within reach.

“I felt really good, thinking I’m going to attack this,” the University of Washington signee said. “But when I came through, I had like 3:59, I was like, ‘This is going to be harder than I thought, for sure.’”

He was right in the end, finishing the race in 4:00.69 — still good enough to surpass Rupp’s 4:01.8 to move to No. 2 on the all-time state list.

“It means a lot, for sure,” Tostenson said.

An Aster-nomical performance earns Roosevelt junior second girls Elite 100 title

Roosevelt's Aster Jones / René Ferrán

Roosevelt junior Aster Jones didn’t start running track until her freshman year, “not really having anything else to do after gymnastics.”

In the ensuing three years, she has vaulted into the upper echelon of Oregon’s all-time great sprinters, and she successfully defended her title in the girls Elite 100, winning by more than a half-second in 11.58 running into a strong headwind that she likened to “a forcefield just coming at my face.”

Jones is undefeated in high school 100s the past two seasons, winning a 6A state title last May and adding a second Jesuit Elite 100 to the Arcadia title she won two weeks ago.

“I didn’t expect any of this,” Jones said. “My sister, my family, my coaches have all fully helped me through this.”

Jones’ older sister, Lily, blazed a similar trail during her time at Roosevelt, finishing No. 4 on the state’s all-time list in the 100 (Aster is No. 5) as a former gymnast and splitting her time between track and softball to start her high school career.

Aster called Lily “a huge influence and a major factor” in her success, describing how before every one of her races, Lily reaches out to remind her, “just breathe, you’ve got this, good luck. So, I really know that I have somebody in my corner.”

Mom knows best: Curtis senior back on track in school, ready to build on boys Elite 100 victory

Curtis' Nicholas Altheimer / René Ferrán

Curtis senior Nicholas Altheimer wasn’t quite as dominant as Jones in winning the boys Elite 100 in 10.56, besting Jesuit senior Grant Valley by 21-hundredths of a second.

“It was a little slower than what I thought it was going to be, but it was a good run,” said Altheimer, who ran his first 100 since placing fourth at Arcadia two weeks ago. “This was one of my most anticipated races, so to come in here and then actually winning it, you know, it was something I wanted to do all day. I’ve been sitting here all day waiting, so I’m kind of happy I got it done.”

Altheimer ran for Emerald Ridge two years ago, but his season ended abruptly in mid-April because of grades — but not exactly for the reason you might expect.

“My mom didn’t like the way my grades were at the moment, so she said I couldn’t run,” he explained.

She did allow him to run during the summer club season, where he finished fifth in the 100 at the U.S. Junior National championships. Over the winter, he finished eighth in the 100 and seventh in the 200 at the Nike Indoor Nationals, and with his grades now meeting Mom’s approval, she gave him the green light to run for the Vikings this spring.

“She said the most important thing is school, so I had to lock in with that before I can come here and do my thing on the track,” he said.

And as his times become more consistent, Altheimer believes “I’m really on, like, a great point in my season. I have a few little things I can improve on, but this season, I have some big goals, and I’m on my way to reaching them.”

Bringing the heat: Crater's Kitchen overcomes 'tough conditions' to set national record in boys 3,200

Crater's Tayvon Kitchen / René Ferrán

As Tayvon Kitchen warmed up for his shot at making history in the 3,200, he had one thought as the temperatures rose to the mid-70s.

“I was like, ‘Please let them push the race back. Please!’” he said, smiling. 

Instead, at 5:40 p.m., as scheduled, he found himself toeing the line, looking to break Simeon Birnbaum’s record of 8:34.10 set two years ago when the Rapid City, S.D., native ran at Arcadia.

His pacers fell by the wayside earlier than he hoped, leaving him having to run solo for more than half the race, but despite the weather, he got the record, crossing the finish line in 8:33.82 and already thinking ahead.

“That’s fast, but I think I can run faster,” Kitchen said. “But just being able to do it in tough conditions with some pacers and a great crowd cheering me on, it’s a lot of fun. And I think there’s a lot of guys in the nation capable of running low 8:30s, sub 8:30s, so I’m just excited at how far running has come the last few years.”

Kitchen hoped to break the record at Arcadia, but instead finished fourth behind Powell, Tostenson and New Zealander Sam Ruthe.

Looking back on the experience after his record-setting performance Friday, he acknowledged, “I was being a bit of a baby about Arcadia. I think it was a very fun race, and I’m sure it was fun to watch, but just being able to come away with a really fast time and a national record today, it feels good.”

Camas senior caps prolific week with meet record in boys pole vault

Camas' Chase McGee / René Ferrán

It has been quite the week for Camas senior pole vaulter Chase McGee.

On Tuesday at a Greater St. Helens League home meet, he skied over 17 feet, 5 inches — the first time he’d been over 17 feet in competition and breaking a 56-year-old state record. 

Three days later, he returned to the Twilight Relays — where he cleared 16 feet for the first time en route to winning the title a year ago — and broke the meet record with a 17-foot clearance on his first attempt at the height.

He scraped the bar as he went by and fully expected to be catching it when he landed in the pit, but instead, it bounced up and landed back on the pegs, somehow defying gravity.

He then took three attempts at 17-6, and after crushing the pole on his first try, “so I just could not get anything out of it,” he broke out a new pole — the third one he used during the meet — “and I was a little surprised by the power of that pole,” he said. “I was just kind of testing out that pole, so today was a good day to be able to get onto that pole. I know what to expect now and can hit it even harder next time.”

That he could repeat going over 17 feet after breaking the record gives him confidence he can reach the new goals he’s set for himself.

“Consistency is key, so getting over 17 twice is really awesome,” he said. “But I think we can go higher than 17-8, maybe 18 in the future. Pretty soon. I’ve got state to compete and then Nike Nationals and U-20s, so I’ll have some good attempts at trying to get higher.”

Churchill's Kleinke adds long jump title to third win in pole vault

Churchill's Addison Kleinke / René Ferrán

Oregon girls pole vault record-holder Addison Kleinke of Churchill also finds herself wrestling with a new pole that she hopes will pay off later this season.

For now, she’ll enjoy a second consecutive title at the Twilight Relays, but she went over only 12-9, well shy of the 14-0½ she vaulted at last June’s Nike Outdoor Nationals.

She explained that last year, she was jumping on 13-7 length poles, but this year, she’s moved to a 14-foot pole, “and I haven’t completed my series yet. So, there’s kind of a gap where one pole’s too small to take me over certain heights, and the next one’s too big for me to get on.”

A couple of weeks ago, she had a scare using the new pole where she peeled off and landed hard on her back in the pit, and she acknowledged it has been challenging to get over the memory.

So, when she missed her first try at 13-0 and switched to that pole, the anxiety overwhelmed her. She did two run-throughs but didn’t make an attempt before the five-minute time limit expired.

“So, once the third attempt marker came up, I was like, ‘OK, if I want to make a difference with this pole, because this is a pole that I need to jump higher heights, I’m gonna have to do it right now,’” Kleinke said.

Although she missed that third attempt, just making that attempt was enough.

“I mean, I completely finished that jump, and it felt great,” she said.

She also was buoyed by jumping over 19 feet for the first time to win the long jump, going 19-0½ (No. 18 on the all-time state list) just before entering the pole vault at 12-9.

Kleinke has devoted more time to the long jump this spring and improved her personal best by almost two feet, and as she learns how to divvy up her training between the events and manage going back-and-forth between them during meets, she thinks it will help her clear higher bars in the future.

“When I’m completely 100% warmed up, my body’s doing the best, so it definitely helps my pole vault, because I have the cues of jumping up,” she said. “It’s the same takeoff, so it almost feels like I’m just getting extra warmups.

“Today, I had the cue of jumping up, and the reason that I peeled off the pole a few weeks ago was because I jumped in. So, I think that jump makes the biggest difference in my season at this point. I know that mark on paper isn’t the best, but I want to say that I’m happier than if I would have made a higher bar on a smaller bar. That was a huge milestone for me.”

Prairie's Foster sticks it out in shot, breaks meet record in discus

Prairie's Will Foster / René Ferrán

It wasn’t a huge surprise that Prairie senior Will Foster was a double winner in the boys shot put and discus.

What was surprising was the manner in which Foster, who recently committed to the University of Washington, had to scramble to win the first of his titles in the shot.

Foster entered as the only 60-foot competitor in the field, but he struggled throughout the event and trailed Blake Johns of Meridian (Idaho), who went 58-6 in the second round while Foster’s best was a 56-8.

On Foster’s final attempt, he put a 58-10½ on the board, and when Johns fouled his sixth throw, Foster could breathe a sigh of relief.

“I felt like I competed very well,” he said. “You know, if you go into a sixth round down, obviously there’s nerves. You’re really scared, but you’ve gotta just kind of flush all that down and just put a mark out there, and that’s what I did.

“I’m happy I competed, not necessarily happy with the mark, but happy with the way I stuck it out.”

Foster then strided over to the discus ring and promptly took control of that competition, taking the lead in the first round and breaking the meet record on his first throw in the finals with a personal-best 191-5.

Tigard junior overcomes 'awful technique' to win third shot title, adds first in discus

Tigard's Marissa Johnson / René Ferrán

Tigard junior Marissa Johnson has a love-hate relationship with Cronin Field’s discus ring, jokingly referring to her “Jesuit curse” for her struggles there.

Entering the finals, it looked like the curse would strike again, as she trailed Estacada’s Abby Berhman by six inches through three throws.

Then, with one 147-foot throw, Johnson saw the curse lifted. She came back one round later to post her winning throw of 148-6 in the battle of the reigning 6A and 4A state champions.

“Abby was right there on me, and it was so nice to have competition,” Johnson said. “She’s a great person, a great thrower, and it definitely propelled me. When somebody betters me, it gives me more motivation, a little more fire to throw farther.”

Johnson came back to win her third Twilight title in the shot put, a little chagrined by throwing 39-1½ in the first round and easing into the lead with a 41-9½ in Round 3. That propelled her to have a solid final series, finishing with a 44-8 on her final attempt.

“I just needed a throw to get myself the last throw in the finals,” she said. “I didn’t have that in disc, and it was a bit of a stressor. It’s hard to sit there and watch someone and be like, ‘Are they going to throw farther than me?’ That was one to get me to have the last throw, and then I just kept going.”

As Johnson looks to defend her 6A titles in both events next month, she feels she’s in a much better place in the discus, where she threw a personal-best 150-3 at the Sunset Team Challenge the previous week.

“I definitely feel I’m building on that a lot,” she said. “I’m more consistent in the 140s. I mean, a 150 and a 148 two meets in a row is really nice. But shot is honestly really bad right now. ... That was awful technique. I’m working on it like day in and day out, doing multiples of different things. But once I fix my technique issues, I think it’ll fly even farther.”

No longer hamstrung by injury, Tualatin senior hurdling to fast times

Tualatin's Campbell Brintnall / René Ferrán

One of the state’s budding rivalries played out in the meet’s opening moments, when seniors Campbell Brintnall of Tualatin and Avery Coker of Wells squared off for the third time this spring in the 100-meter hurdles.

Brintnall beat Coker at the Oregon Relays (both finished behind Kaylin Edwards of Wilson in Long Beach, Calif.), but the two-time 6A state champion avenged that loss a week later at the Need for Speed Invitational, beating Brintnall by two-hundredths of a second.

The rubber match saw Brintnall deny Coker a third Twilight Relays title, breaking the meet record in a personal-best 14.24 that moved her to No. 6 on the all-time state list.

“It was just all about running between the hurdles,” Brintnall said. “Me and my coach have worked on that a lot, so that was just the whole focus for today.”

Brintnall has shaved more than a second off her personal best entering the season after nursing a hamstring injury last spring. 

She targeted running a sub-14.3 and breaking Alaina Brady’s meet-record 14.36 set six years ago, so with those goals out of the way, next could be joining state record-holder Bianca Mathabane (13.57 for Lincoln in 2006) and Harley Daniel (13.95 for Oregon City in 2022) as the only girls to break 14 seconds in the high hurdles during their prep careers.

“I’m a lot healthier mentally and physically, and everything’s just been really locked in holistically,” Brintnall said. “That’s the biggest difference, honestly. I’m healthy. So, yeah, we’re here to get after it.”

This and that …

Topher Gabel / René Ferrán

• Sandy sophomore Topher Gabel’s breakthrough season continued as he cleared a meet-record 6-10 to win the high jump. Gabel started the year with a career best of 6-2, but after quitting basketball to focus on the event, he went 6-7 during the indoor season and built upon that success this spring. On his final attempt at 6-10, he fed off the crowd to find the energy and became the 40th Oregon boy to clear that height, and now he thinks a 7-foot jump is possible by season’s end. “Just more time and confidence,” he said. “You’ve just got to know that you can clear all those heights.”

Maddie Carney / René Ferrán

• One of the day’s best races was a three-way battle in the girls 3,200 between Caldera sophomore Maddie Carney and two small-school 3,000 state champions — Daisy Lalonde of 2A East Linn Christian and Jaya Simmons of 3A Valley Catholic. Carney was third entering the final lap and dueled Lalonde down the homestretch before edging her by half a second in 10:36.37. “I think we all three just really worked together through that race, and that’s what really helped pull us to a PR,” Carney said. “I was honestly coming into this race not sure how to go. I just wanted to race with the top girls and see how I could line up, so I’m super excited.”

• It’s only late April, but Grant’s boys 4x100 relay team of Nick Normington, Peyton Wood, Silas Wise and Antoin Hawthorne is already one of the best in state history. The quartet moved to No. 12 on the all-time state list with a winning 41.74 time — just 55-hundredths of a second off Sheldon’s state-record 41.19 from 11 years ago.

• Another thrilling finish came in the boys 4x200, which saw Tigard defeat cross-district rival Tualatin by two-hundredths of a second, with Marcus Burton, Daniel Rotaru, Noah Saldana and Brayden Nee winning in a meet-record 1:27.66. Their time was just 0.05 of a second off Lake Oswego’s state record of 1:27.61 run last year at the Florida Relays.

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