Dozens of athletes from ages 2 to 52 flocked to the Yelm High School track for the inaugural Total Sports Development (TSD) Speed Night Wednesday, Aug. 14.
Student athletes traveled from Puyallup, Orting, Tacoma, Sumner and Elma to test their skills in sprinting, running and jumping events. The TSD Speed Night concluded six weeks of summer events.
While Yelm High School and other local schools were well represented, student athletes from Orting and Rogers high schools took home the most first-place ribbons. Wesley Isenberger of Rogers earned first in the boys’ 50-meter, 100-meter and 200-meter events while narrowly coming in second to Sumner’s Gabriel Haraguchi in the 400 meters.
Yelm’s own Nathaniel “Junie” Smiley Jr., 9, represented his hometown well by taking first in the 800 meters and 1,600 meters over high schoolers and graduates.
Orting’s Trinity Backman and Myquela Pride, two members of the Cardinals’ back-to-back third-place girls state finishers at the 2A level, combined to snag four titles, with Pride earning wins in the 100 meters, long jump and triple jump and Backman winning the 50-meter sprint.
Pride is the reigning 2A state champion in the 100-meter hurdles, 300-meter hurdles and the triple jump, and she broke the school records in the former two events last year. She and Backman are also members of the quarter who set the school 4x100 relay record.
Pride went into the TSD Speed Night with few goals as she had not run in about three months, but she exceeded what little expectations she had.
“I was like, ‘I’m gonna do bad at this,’ but I actually got a personal record for long jump and would’ve had a school record, but it doesn’t really count.” Pride said. “Going into my senior year, I want to double my championships.”
Backman, an incoming junior at Orting High School, added that she hoped to make progress toward her long jump record of 16 feet and 8 inches and eventually work toward the school record of 17 feet and 7 inches. She said she appreciated the opportunity with TSD to inch closer to her goals.
“It was just yet another opportunity to see what I can do, how far I can push myself, and to see where I was at,” Backman said. “I have a little ways to go, but I think, with some more weight training and more training throughout the year, I should be able to get it.”
After the majority of the events had concluded and the sun had set, nearly two dozen athletes suited up in their brightest track apparel and participated in the 5,000-meter run under the Yelm stadium lights. Rogers’ Jaiveer Lalli surprised spectators and fellow runners by finishing in under 16 minutes, lapping multiple participants in the process and maintaining the same pace for every lap.
Alex McIntire, Yelm track head coach and TSD track coach, said the purpose of TSD’s track and field program is to elevate the sport and bring opportunities to people of all ages. The organization is working on creating development sessions for the indoor track season this winter.
“It really meant a lot to me to be able to host a track meet for the community. There was a lot of great energy at the meet,” McIntire said. “The twilight 5K under the lights was incredible. Spectators lined the track with glow sticks and cheered on athletes. It was a very cool moment where you could tell people were in love with the sport. I was especially proud of our TSD athletes. Every single athlete showed significant growth over their six weeks with us.”
