TACOMA — Caden Durocher’s day at Mount Tahoma High School Saturday began in his typical Olympia track garb: a navy blue tank top, black shorts and black Adidas running shoes.
It concluded in a black suit and a blue button-up shirt with a shiny gold medal around his neck.
The Olympia track team left Tacoma and headed straight to Indian Summer Country Club for the school’s 9 p.m. prom, which Durocher was sharply dressed for while standing on the podium at Mount Tahoma High School with the boys team’s second-place trophy.
Was Durocher chosen as king of his senior prom? Not quite, but he’ll gladly settle for king of the 800 meters instead.
Durocher set a 4A state meet record, school record and Thurston County record in the 4A 800-meter finals Saturday morning, crossing the finish line in 1 minute, 49.74 seconds to win the state championship. He became the first Olympia male runner to ever win the state title in the 800 meters.
In most years, a time like 1:49.74 would be enough to win comfortably, but this was no ordinary field of runners. Durocher and Rogers (Puyallup) senior Amin Fidaar, who has had his fair share of close calls against Olympia runners recently, squared off in what may have been the best photo finish of the weekend.
After the two South Puget Sound League runners swapped leads in the first 400 meters, Durocher took the lead with about 250 meters to go, but the savvy senior knew Fidaar wouldn’t stay far back for long. Fidaar picked up the pace and hustled toward the finish line, getting shoulder-to-shoulder with Durocher at around the 30-meter mark before Durocher eked out the victory by six-hundredths of a second.
Neither runner knew in the moment who the champion was, so they, along with the entire stadium, looked back at the scoreboard after the photo finish to see what the verdict was. The scoreboard eventually showed Durocher and Fidaar both at 1:49.74, but Durocher’s name was on top.
Officially, Durocher finished in 1:49.731, and Fidaar’s time came in at 1:49.737, a difference of six hundredths of a second.
“I’ve lost enough races like that to Amin to be like, ‘It’s probably Amin.’ I was really excited for whoever won,” Durocher said. “I was honestly more relegated to just assuming he won, but when I saw my name pop up first, I couldn’t believe it.”
Durocher earned sweet revenge on his friend Fidaar, who won the district title in the 800 meters last week by two hundredths of a second over Durocher. It was also redemption for Durocher in the state finals as he went from finishing in dead last in the finals of last year’s race to first this year. He also finally broke the school record after previously missing it five times by less than a second.
“I know that anything can happen. I don’t like making a plan before the gun goes off. I will make a plan every 50 meters,” Durocher said. “I know that if things go right, like they did today, I’m a state champion. If things go wrong, I’m dead last in the heat. I knew 250 meters in that it was the best I’ve ever felt in an 800.”
Durocher understood the kind of footspeed Fidaar is equipped with and his knack for finding himself in thrilling finishes down the home stretch. Instead of making a move in the final 50 meters or 100 meters, Durocher turned up the jets at the 250-meter mark, which made the miniscule difference at the finish line.
Olympia freshman Quenton Lanese, who was on the wrong side of a Fidaar photo finish in the 1,600 meters Thursday, reset his own national freshman record in the 3,200 meters Saturday. He posted a time of 8:47.19 to finish in second place behind Camas’ Cohen Butler, who set the meet record at 8:43.77.
Lanese wasn’t just looking to break the national freshman record. He wanted the sophomore record of 8:43 while still a freshman in high school. He toppled his own national times in both the 1,600 meters and the 3,200 meters in the same weekend, finishing as the state runner-up in both races.
“Honestly, I’m a little bit sad because I only improved my time by half a second. But I can’t complain about getting second place,” Lanese said. “That’s a huge accomplishment, especially for a freshman.”
Lanese’s pace throughout the race was impressive, despite dealing with nerves. His first lap was completed in 1:03.19, and he didn’t have a lap take longer than 1:09.54. Three of his laps, including his first and last laps, were under 1:05.
Lanese’s final race of his historic freshman season will take place next weekend at the Brooks PR Invitational in Renton, where he will have a chance to break his 1,600-meter record for the third time.
Durocher and Lanese helped the Olympia boys team earn the second-place trophy at the state meet. It’s the highest finish for the Bears since they won the 3A state title in 1998 and is the third top-two finish in school history. The only other second-place finish came in 1932.
Olympia was in line to win the state title until Mead finished in second place in the 4x400 relay, which put Mead over the top by two points 55-53.
Senior Carson Godfrey wrapped up his second state medal of the weekend by clinching second in the 4A discus with a best throw of 175-9. The competition was solely a battle for second place, as Mead’s Simon Rosselli won with a state meet record of 223-11. Godfrey also finished in third place in the shot put.
In his first trip to state, Olympia senior Logan Gerrits took 11th in the pole vault at 13-6. Junior Kam Kronmeyer came in 14th in the long jump with a top leap of 20-1.5.
Capital junior Jae Walz finished off a strong season in the 800 meters with a seventh-place medal and a time of 1:57.14 in the finals.
Yelm senior Samuel DeJiacomo was the first thrower outside of the discus finals, watching from 10th place at 149 feet, 6 inches. Junior Caiden Carmody tied for 13th place in the 4A pole vault at 12-6.
