TACOMA — For the first time in seven years, the 2A girls 4x200 relay state championship trophy was hoisted by a school not named Tumwater.
The dynasty came to an end at Mount Tahoma High School in the state meet Saturday morning, as the Thunderbirds handed the baton to champion Bainbridge and took fifth place with a time of 1:43.87. Tumwater had won four consecutive state championships in the event dating back to 2022, and no state meet was held the previous two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Compared to previous state meets, the adrenaline rush for the Tumwater 4x200 relay team to defend its titles felt different. This season, the Thunderbirds were tasked with replacing two stalwarts from the well-oiled 4x200 machine in Ava Jones and Reese Heryford, with Cassidy Hedin and Ashlyn Hufana returning and taking over the leadership roles.
Abigail Kummer and Alexandra Broome stepped in to fill the shoes of the graduated veterans and did an impressive job to help the T-Birds’ relayers return to the 4x200 podium. Tumwater’s 4x100 relay (49.06 seconds) and 4x400 relay (4:00.87) teams also finished third and fourth, respectively, with Hedin the lone representative on all three relay squads.
“This year, there was a little bit of worry about what was going to happen,” Hedin said of the 4x200 relay team. “Placing fifth in the 4x200 and fourth in the 4x400 is so cool because we have a completely new set of girls who don’t have the same amount of experience. Obviously, we didn’t win, but we had so much fun. The positivity and the environment on this team this year was completely different, game-changing for me. I will always look back on this year as my favorite.”
Hedin had an eventful Saturday, racing in four finals and taking home medals in all four. Aside from helping all three relay teams reach the podium for the second year in a row, the senior dazzled in the 300-meter hurdles finals. She broke her own school record to finish in fourth place at 45.07, improving on her seventh-place time at state last season. This marked the third time Hedin has reset the school record this season.
“As much as winning is fun, I think the greatest gift that I’ve had is learning how to persevere. It was fun to start having some ownership in an individual race,” Hedin said. “Breaking the school record was just a cherry on top.”
In order to improve in the 300-meter hurdles, Hedin trained in the 100-meter hurdles in the offseason. While she didn’t end up competing in the 100-meter hurdles in a meet, the faster pace forced her to shore up her technique, which paid dividends from year one as a hurdler to year two.
The physical labor involved in racing four times in a little over six hours was massive for Hedin. She was the finishing leg of the 4x200 relay around 10:30 a.m., ran the second leg of the 4x100 relay at about 1 p.m., competed in the 300-meter hurdles after 2:15 p.m., and returned to the track for the final handoff of the 4x400 relay after 5 p.m.
“I’m so dead,” Hedin said. “I feel like I raced really well. I put it all out on the line. Running for my teammates has always been a super big motivator for me.”
Hedin has one prep track meet left at the Nike Outdoor Nationals in Eugene, Oregon, before her legendary career comes to a close. She played a part in setting four school records at Tumwater and has been a member of all three relays since her freshman year, winning three state titles in the 4x200 and one state title in the 4x400 in 2023.
“More than anything, I want the girls next year to look back and be like, ‘She was a good leader. She spoke to me in a way that made me feel better about myself and that lifted me up,’” Hedin said. “I want to be remembered less for what I was able to do competing on the track but for the kind of teammate I was, and I think I did that.”
Hedin wasn’t the only Tumwater relay athlete to win a medal in an individual race. Broome took home a fourth-place medal in the 800 meters at 2:16.74 and earned eighth in the 400 meters at 1:00.93. Hufana also notched a sixth-place finish in the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.62 seconds.
Tumwater senior Abigail Krause capped off her prep career and breakout final campaign by putting together her best shot put performance to date with a fourth-place medal. She entered the state meet with a PR of 36-9, set back in 2024, but she unloaded three throws over 37 feet, all in the finals. Her best throw landed at 37-8.25.
In her third state shot put competition, Krause finally advanced to the finals after finishing in 12th place in each of the last two years. She stood on the podium in both the discus and the shot put this weekend, taking seventh in the discus Thursday and making the finals for both events.
“The ending of last year and the year before was definitely hard. I came in a lot more prepared this year and more comfortable in my throws. This year, I worked a lot harder and focused more on my technique, and I just threw,” Krause said. “I wasn’t thinking about my marks. I didn’t care where I was on the podium just as long as I could podium this year.”
Centralia junior Jayden Krogness made it out of the first flight and into the finals with a top throw of 35-7.75, topping her previous PR by a quarter of an inch to finish with an eighth-place medal.
Black Hills sophomore Ambrielle Wallace picked up a state medal in the high jump, finishing in eighth place by matching her PR of 5-0. Wallace, in her first year at Black Hills after moving from Maine, was a fifth-place state high jumper in Maine’s Class C state championship meet last June.
