Olympia star Coleman gets two different track sendoffs from Thurston County’s weather

Twice in three days, Ethan Coleman ran a track event for the final time in Thurston County.

The conditions were very different, the results the same: decisive victory.

The Notre Dame-bound senior cross country and track star first accepted an appreciative sendoff from Olympia High School fans Wednesday night, pulling 14 of his 17 opponents to personal records to win an all-star 3200-meter race hosted by the Bears.

His time of 8:53.77 was a couple of seconds off his own PR, but good enough for a 16-second win over runner-up Sam Jacobsen from Newport of Bellevue on a pleasant spring evening. The field was strong if not as stellar as a year ago when Northwest runners knew there would be no state meets because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“It was really a pretty fun last race on our track, to see Ethan run against really awesome competition and win by 100 meters,” said Olympia boys head coach Jesse Stevick.

While the crowd gathered for Coleman’s senior night wasn’t much larger than usual, it was different.

“It was such a great atmosphere to be in, with the full support of the people in the stadium,” said Coleman, who admitted the race itself got a little “boring and grindy” after he assumed a huge lead. “Lots of teachers and staff came out, which was super cool. One of the skills I pride myself on is getting along well with my teachers.”

Friday night, Coleman, along with nearly every other notable high school track and field athlete in Thurston County and beyond, endured torrential downpours at Tumwater’s 56th Bob Shaner Invitational.

Running through driving curtains of wet after two false starts caused by equipment malfunctions rattled the competitors, Coleman breezed to victory in the 1600 meters by the length of Sid Otton Field, clocking a 4:15.6. Aberdeen’s Julio Campos finished second in 4:28.11.

“It was awesome to see him run a 4:15. If you look at where guys’ PRs are, he was less off his PR than anyone else in that race,” said Stevick. Coleman’s mark was less than a second off the meet record 4:14.66 set by Kelso’s Chris Rodriguez in 2005.

Coleman appreciated the challenge presented by the conditions, which were ferocious enough to cancel the boys pole vault entirely.

“Days like this aren’t made for PRs,” he said. “It’s fun, though, to be three laps in and you don’t know what’s happening anymore. All you know is you’re in pain and you’re going to keep going fast.”

With the upcoming 4A South Puget Sound League meet scheduled for Bethel High School’s track, the bidistrict meet in Kent and state at Mount Tahoma, Coleman’s remarkable running career has made its last local stops.

Coleman finished second in the 4A state cross country championships and won the NXR Northwest Regional meet in Idaho during the fall. He currently has Washington’s best marks in both the 3000 (8:20.79) and the 3200 (8:51.09).

He’s ninth in the 1600 (4:13.89) and has also scored points for Olympia in the 800 and as part of the Bears’ 4x400 relay team, which won the Shaner in 3:24.77, second in the state overall, less than two seconds behind fellow 4A school Lake Stevens.

Coleman may run the 800 to help Olympia score points in the 4A SPSL meet, but after that will focus on the 1600, 3200 and relay.

“The 3200 is always going to be my focus,” Coleman, who was eighth in the event as a freshman at state in 2019, said. “High school track doesn’t have the distances I’m mostly interested in. Also, in the four by four we’re putting together a really fun team. It’s going to be cool to see what we can do at state.”

Olympia’s relay team is a mix of runners from different disciplines. Kenyatta McNeese, Jr., who won the 100 at Shaner, leads off, followed by middle distance specialists Parker Fouts and Connor Johnson, as well as Coleman.

After the state meet, Coleman will put club competition on hold as he typically has done in summer, to focus on beginning his academic career as a pre-med student at Notre Dame and to prepare for NCAA cross country competition. He recommends his sport to prospective athletes looking for a fall or spring team to join.

“It changed my life,” he said. “Not just scholarships and recognition. All that stuff is great, but it’s given me so many life lessons. At Olympia, the program is based on you being more than just a runner,” he said. “Jesse and all the coaching staff care about you as a person, not just an athlete.”

Stevick returned the compliment.

“I’ve never coached anyone who was both as talented and as hard a worker as Ethan,” he said.

Despite the wet conditions, three meet records fell at Shaner, the area’s de facto local all-classifications championship meet:

Rainier’s Jeremiah Nubbe, the national leader in the event, defied the downpour to shatter the record in the boys discus with a throw of 195-07, more than 20 feet past the previous best of 175-6 by Capital’s Zach Midles in 2009.

Yelm sophomore Brayden Platt, who also won the boys shot put in a state all-classifications best 57-3, threw the javelin 189-8, edging the 187-4 thrown by Olympia’s David Woodward in 2016.

On the girls side, Capital’s Amanda Moll, the current world leader in the pole vault among 17- and 18-year old girls, soared more than two feet past the existing mark of 11-6, set by W.F. West’s Alex Huestis in 2006, jumping 14 feet. Moll didn’t miss on Friday, but stopped competing because of the conditions. Her twin sister Hana, second among world juniors, did not vault.

Olympia won the meet as a team with a combined 224.5 points between boys and girls, followed by host Tumwater at 210.