New head coach leads Dayville track and field

Published 12:00 pm Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Practicing on Dayville’s athletic field with its dirt track may not be ideal, but the Tiger track and field team makes it work.

When runners aren’t practicing their relay hand-offs, sprints or hurdles on the track, they’re out on the paved South Fork Road, running near the river and past ranches and hay fields.

“It’ll be interesting to see what we do on a real track,” said head coach Josh Williams.

Williams is new to coaching track and field but has experience as assistant basketball coach for the Dayville/Monument Tigers for two years.

Last year, Dayville combined with Monument School for track and field with Peter Bogardus over the Dayville athletes. Bogardus has since moved out of state, and Dayville is not combining with Monument this season.

A science and agriculture teacher for Dayville High School, Williams said he enjoyed track and field when he was a student at Wheeler County High School in Fossil.

“I had a great track coach, Jon Bowerman — his dad, Bill, was coach for University of Oregon for several years,” Williams said. Bill was also a co-founder of Nike.

Williams has experience with the 100- and 200-meter dashes, the 400 and long jump.

His wife, Molly (Buce) Williams, who is assistant coach, competed in shot put and discus for Dayville in her high school days. She works at Dayville School’s early learning center.

Skip Inscore will assist in coaching javelin.

The Tigers have five high school athletes, including seniors Gabe Walker-Hopkins and Austin Walker.

This is Walker-Hopkins’ fifth year participating in track and field. He plans to compete in hurdles, long jump and the 100 and 200.

“I’m going to try to make it to state in the 300-meter hurdles, and everything else I want to improve on,” he said, adding, “Our new coach should be fun.”

Last year, Walker-Hopkins had a fourth-place finish in the 300 hurdles at the district championships and set a personal record in the 100 at the event.

Zachary Ferguison is a freshman transfer student with three years of experience competing on Heppner’s middle school team.

Last year, he placed third in the 800-meter run, setting a personal record, at the middle school championships at Riverside Junior-Senior High School. He also competed in the 4×200-meter relay for fourth place, the 3,000 for fifth place and the long jump for 12th place.

Ferguison said he likes how he and his teammates help push each other in practice, and he’s looking forward to competing with and beating opponents.

“I love running,” he said. “You get lots of time to think and just relax and run.”

Freshman Jaydon Hoffman said he’s looking forward to their first meet of the season on Friday, the fourth annual Prairie City Invitational.

Hoffman competed last year on the middle school team, trying out several events. He said his favorite is the 100.

“I like the short burst of speed,” he said.

At the invitational, Dayville will meet up with a few of their District 4 competitors, a district with a total of 15 teams. All Grant County teams will also compete, including Prairie City, Grant Union, Monument and Long Creek.

Dayville sophomore Haylee Collins is new to track and field but said she’s hoping for a fun season and seeing everyone improve.

“I look forward to helping people if they need support, if they’re having a bad day,” she said.

Molly oversaw the six middle school athletes at a recent practice and noted that eighth-grader Hannah Hand is a strong thrower. Hand was showing others the techniques for launching the shot put from the cement throw circle.

Josh said he’s especially excited about the boys 4×100 relay.

“I think we have some guys with some speed,” he said. “The team has some good runners.”

He said he wants his team members to shoot for improvement and setting personal records.

“I want them coming out of here with more knowledge about the different events and learning to push their body mentally and physically,” he said.

Dayville Tigers track and field schedule

April 5: @ Prairie City Invitational, 11 a.m.

April 9: @ Grant Union Small School Meet in John Day, 4 p.m.

April 12: @ Burns Lions/Oster Track Meet, 1 p.m.

April 19: @ Condon/Wheeler Invitational, 11 a.m.

April 30: @ Ranchers Invitational in Crane, 3:30 p.m.

May 10: 1A District 4 Championships in Baker City, 10 a.m.

May 17-18: OSAA 1A State Championships in Monmouth at Western Oregon University, TBA