Tumwater’s Foos shakes off DQ, reunites with old teammates

Bella Foos has too much to focus on to dwell on her blunder.

Tumwater High School originally finished fifth in the Class 2A girls 4x200-meter relay Thursday in its preliminary heat at Star Track XXXIV, but Foos — who will also compete in the 200 and 400 preliminaries Friday — jumped her handoff.

As the anchor stagger approached, the junior sprinter grabbed hold of the baton too early from teammate Peyton Russell, it was later announced, disqualifying Tumwater from otherwise advancing to Saturday’s final heat.

“Usually I see Peyton come around the corner, she’s leading the whole pack,” Foos said. “I think it kind of came at me all at once. It was a little chaotic. I just left a little late and took it from her right away. She caught up to me pretty fast.”

It initially rattled Foos, but calming words from her coaches helped revert her attention back to her other events.

“I was telling my coaches that it was all my fault,” she said. “They said ‘It happens to the best teams in the world. It’s just something you have to get past.’”

With Foos as the anchor, Tumwater snagged the eighth and final qualifying spot in the 4x400 relay about three hours after the disqualification, finishing in four minutes, 9.71 seconds. Foos enters the 200 with a 25.85-second qualifying time — fourth best in 2A— and a seventh-best 59.38 seconds in the 400.

“We have to focus on getting the podium in the 4x400, and I run the 200 and the 400 (Friday), so I have to put all my effort and energy into preparing for that,” she said.

As she looked on as the Issaquah won in the girls 4A girls 4x400 relay preliminary by a landslide, Foos did so fondly.

She competed for the very 4x400 team for two seasons before transferring to Tumwater at the beginning of the school year.

“I was secretly hoping they wouldn’t break the record,” Foos said, half-jokingly. “But I really want them to on Saturday. (Watching them win) was awesome, I was so proud of them. They obviously haven’t changed, they’re all going really strong.”

Aside from visiting an Issaquah practice about a month ago, Thursday was the first time last year’s 4A girls 4x400 state-champion relay team had spent time together.

“We’ve missed her so much all season,” Issaquah sophomore Elise Burdette said. “We haven’t been able to see her at KingCo or Districts or anything like that, so we were all just counting down the days like, ‘We get to see Bella at state again.’”

Sophomore Sami Corman said seeing Foos donning another uniform, competing with different girls, made her “want to be one of her teammates again.”

Issaquah finished with a time of 3:49.28 Thursday, more than six seconds ahead of the second-place finisher.

This story was originally published May 27, 2016 at 11:44 AM with the headline "Tumwater’s Foos shakes off DQ, reunites with old teammates."