Fifteen Wood River High School track and field athletes—eight boys and seven girls—have automatically qualified for the Idaho High School Activities Association State 4A track and field meet May 19-20 at Mountain View High in Meridian.
Their achievements included three district championships during the District 4 4A championship meet staged May 11-12 at Mountain Home High School’s Tiger Field. The top four individuals and top two relays teams ended up with state tickets.
Wood River senior Owen Stouffer won Friday’s 400-meter dash by nearly one second in a personal-record 49.70 seconds. Hailey senior Gunnar Kimball captured the pole vault by six inches with a personal-best leap of 15 feet. Both were school records.
Also winning at district was the Wolverine girls’ 800m sprint medley squad of sophomores Parker Higgins, Stella Oelerich and Asha Singh, along with anchor Elizabeth Lipman with a time of 1:52.91. Both Stouffer and Lipman ended up qualifying for state in three or more district events.
Lipman was the second-place 400m dash finisher in a personal-best 1:00.27—over one second better than her preliminary time. She also placed third in the 800m distance run with a PR of 2:23.81. Stouffer was third in 200m (22.82, PR) just ahead of fourth-place teammate and state qualifier Zack Dilworth (22.92, PR).
Owen Stouffer’s other state qualifying events were 4x400m relay and 1600m medley relay.
Wood River boys placed second in those relays. In the 4x400m, it was senior Payton Cole, junior Porter Thompson, senior Ethan Hansen and Stouffer (3:29.98), just behind Jerome. In medley, it was senior Payton Sorensen, senior Dilworth, Stouffer and Emmett Stouffer (3:45.39).
Lipman was joined as an individual state qualifier by four other Wolverine girls. They were senior Ava Smith (2nd place, triple jump, 33-1.5, PR), sophomore Peyton Wood (2nd place, discus, 95-4, PR), freshman Mabel Thompson (3rd place high jump, 4-10) and Oelerich (4th place pole vault, 8-0).
In district team ranks, Wood River (80 points boys, 81 girls) ended in solid fifth places of seven schools. Hailey’s girls piled up 31 points in the field and 21 relays, and the boys had 29 in sprints and 27 in the relays.
Winning team titles Friday were the Twin Falls girls (164.5 well-balanced points including 40 sprints and 43.5 field) and Jerome’s boys (136 with 33 hurdles and 57 field).
Wood River’s junior varsity earned 45.5 points at the district finals led by freshman Bill Smith (1st place, discus, 108-03 PR) and second-place junior Noah Hill (pole vault, 8-6, PR) and sophomore Owen Gingrich (300m hurdles, 47.86). Sophomore Ronan O’Reilly placed third in the 3200m (11:41.21) and fifth in 1600m (5:13.43, PR). Sophomore Jack Schoessler was fourth in the high jump (5-0, PR).
Cutthroat runners make state
Sun Valley Community School athletes Ben Haynes, a junior, and freshman Addie Parmenter have qualified as newly-crowned district champions for the State 2A track and field meet May 19-20 at Middleton.
During the District 4 3A/2A championships staged May 10-11 at Filer High School, Parmenter set personal-record times in winning the 2A 200-meter dash by 0.52 seconds with a time of 27.58 seconds and the 400m by 1.84 seconds in 1:01.41.
Haynes won the 800m distance run in a personal-record 2:11.89 and also qualified for state as the second-place 200m dash finisher with a personal-record time of 25.19. The Haynes’ 800m win came in a photo finish over Wendell’s Justin Egbert. 
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