LAKEWOOD – Weld Central senior Zayne Stam missed the Class 3A shot put podium by a quarter inch last year.
The well-mulleted senior had the 50-foot mark on his mind on Saturday at Jefferson County Stadium, but the conditions weren’t conducive to those kinds of numbers. And after coming in seeded third behind North Fork’s Marken Buzzell and Lutheran’s Keaton Reiman, Stam found himself right in the prelims.
And on his final throw of the afternoon, he found himself in second behind Eaton’s Philip Lawrence, who had just thrown 46-1.25 feet to take the lead. Stam’s best of the day leading up to that final throw was 45-2 (remember that number), but he dug deep and matched Lawrence’s 46-1.25.
Remember that 45-2, well it came into play, because that was the tiebreaking throw that broke the tie – Lawrence’s next best throw was 44-9.5 – and gave Stam the title.
“Last year has haunted me a bit,” said Stam, who will play football next season at Western Colorado University in Gunnison. “Wrestling haunted me too (he finished third), so I wanted to redeem myself in track and I really put in the work for that.”
It helped to have his Rebels teammates with him all afternoon to kind of keep him loose and keep the mood light. And although Abdul Alarpe (who was sporting a sweet Optimus Prime helmet on the bench) and Kane Fobare didn’t make finals, they were there to cheer on their teammate.
“It’s all about nerves and you can throw as good as you want in practice, but you come in here and there is just a different kind of pressure,” said Stam, who threw a season best 47-2 at his home Rebel Roundup in Keenesburg last month. “Having teammates here really helped out, keeping me loose, especially in those last couple of throws when things started tightening up.”
Staying with the throwers, but on the girls side, it was really a two horse race between defending state champion Alexandria Tice of Lamar and runner-up Melita Ferchau of Gunnison. And much like Stam, Ferchau saved her best for last and uncorked a final throw of 139-2 that bested Tice, who had the lead at 134-2 on her penultimate throw, by almost five feet for the title.
On the track, there were five finals on the reworked Saturday schedule that all went 800 meters. The first was the girls 800 sprint medley relay that went to Coal Ridge. The Titans quartet of Mary Bolitho, Nicole Herrera, Peyton Garrison and Jackie Camunez who finished second last year climbed to the top of the podium with a time of 1:48.19.
In the 800 meters, Basalt’s Katelyn Maley went out quickly and then held off a late charge from Berthoud’s Jaycee Williams, for the victory in 2:13.27. Liberty Common’s Brandon Bate used a huge final kick to overcome top seed Chandler Wilburn of The Classical Academy and win in a time of 1:56.25.
The final event of the night, when the temperature had dipped into the 40’s was the 4×200 meter relay. The girls from Liberty Common roared to victory in 1:44.78 and then to cap the night in Cass 3A, the boys from Holy Family — Conor Byrne, Pierce Kunz, Dom Neely and Graydon Arnold — went a classification record time of 1:27.86.