Liberty Bell High School’s Kady Hammer, a sophomore, anchored the girls’ 4×200 meter race at the District 6 2B track meet in Oroville. She took a 1st and two 3rd-places at the recent Pine Cone Classic Para-Sport meet in Spokane.
Also takes 3rd in 100M, 200M runs in Spokane
Kady Hammer of Winthrop won the long jump and placed 3rd in her 100-meter and 200M races at Saturday’s Pine Cone Classic Para-Sport Track and Field Meet in Spokane.
The meet, sponsored by Spokane Para-Sport, was held on the campus at Whitworth University.
Hammer’s 1st-place long jump of 11 feet, 11.5 inches was just over a foot longer than her only competitor in the Open Ambulatory division. It was her first ever competitive long jump in either high school or para-sports and, as such, sets her personal record for the event.
In the 100M dash, Hammer’s time of 14.64 was just off her high school PR mark of 14.56 set at the state WIAA championships three weeks ago, and good for 3rd place. She was competing against a pair of para-sport veterans, Taylor Swanson (12.89) of Palouse Speed Academy and Veronica Elseroad (13.45), also unattached.
Swanson and Elseroad also ran 1-2, respectively in the 200M dash. The 200 was Hammer’s first solo try at that distance for a respectable 33.23. Her only other 200M experience came last month at the District 6 2B championships, running a solid anchor leg for Liberty Bell in the 4x200M relay.
The majority of this year’s field at the Spokane event were actively enrolled in ParaSport-Spokane, with several, including Hammer, listed as “unattached,” or coming from other running clubs from the Palouse and Puget Sound regions of the Pacific Northwest. ParaSport Spokane is more of a regional program with registered athletes from all over eastern Washington, some members hailing from Wenatchee, Yakima and the Tri-Cities.
“This is only the second year of the meet,” said volunteer coach David Grieg on Monday. “Most of the meets we go to involve travel, lots of travel, that cost averaging about $2,000 per athlete, per trip, so we decided to try and hold a local meet here in Spokane last year.”
They attracted 20 athletes in the first year, and doubled the size of the field this year to about 40, including an athlete from the University of Illinois.
Looking ahead
“Kady did really well,” Grieg added. “Once she gets through the testing and screening stuff, we expect she’ll be in a different class of athletes, one where she is already highly ranked nationally.”
For her part, Kady’s father, Joe, said she was happy with her meet, especially when she discovered she was the fastest in her age division in both races and won the long jump outright.
“She’s excited about how she ran and seems interested in taking the next steps,” he said.
Those next steps might take her across the country to a national competition.
Parasport Spokane Executive Director Teresa Skinner is high on Hammer. “We would love to have her in our program,” she said prior to the Pine Cone Classic. On Monday, her opinion hadn’t changed, except to be more excited about recruiting the Liberty Bell junior to don their colors.
“She’s enthusiastic and a willing participant,” Skinner said. “We’re hoping she can join us for Nationals in July.”
Skinner said the next competition for ParaSport Spokane athletes is upcoming July 8-14 at the Hartford Nationals in and around Birmingham, Alabama. The meet is a multi-sport event, track and field among other sports in the Paralympics discipline, at several venues around the Birmingham area, including suburbs Hoover and Lakeshore.
