Track/Field: 4th Annual South Sound Classic Host Emerald Ridge takes Championship

4/16/2024

(Puyallup, WA) Emerald Ridge and Rogers (Puyallup) track teams hosted their 4th annual South Sound Classic sponsored by the Washington State Fair under sunny skies and warm early spring temperatures at Sparks Stadium in Puyallup. Emerald Ridge Head Coach Robert Frey has been the key mover of creating this event and making sure it goes off as smoothly as possible as was pumped that the weather cooperated.

69 teams had entries in this invitational and these events are extremely important to the athletes as it gives them a real taste of what league, district and state tournament competitions are like.

The meet gives away 1 trophy and it’s the combined boys and girls scores that determine the South Sound Classic Champion. It came down to the final event of the day the girls 4×400 relay. Emerald Ridge needed to win or take 2nd to beat Glacier Peak and Gig Harbor.

The Jaguars won the final event in devastating fashion putting a stamp on the competition. They finished with 75 points heavily relying on the girls team who scored 71 of the 75. The Emerald Ridge girls easily won the girls side of the meet as well.

Glacier Peak and Gig Harbor both scored an impressive 71. Glacier Peak boys were tops with 48 and their girls chipped in 23. The Tides got 33 from the boys who tied for 4th with Olympia while the girls scored 38 but finished 6th on the girls side a half point behind Bainbridge.

There were many personal records set along with season best performances and a few meet records as well. Many times saw big chunks of improvement and in the girls pole vault the 8th best vault in the country was cleared when Ella McRitchie of Bainbridge cleared 13’6 which would have placed her 4th in the boys competition. McRitchie has the top vault in the state of course, the top vault in the country is 14′ 5 from an athlete in North Carolina. This tied her mark as the top vault in Washington so far this year.

There were 3 other new #1 State throws and jumps at this meet, Cass Atkins of Federal Way set new high leaps in the girls long and triple jumps (more on her day below in the Female Athlete of the Meet post). And the 4th new #1 came from South Kitsap’s Grace Degarimore in the Discus tossing the heavy frisbee 150-03.

All together there were 8 new Washington State top 5 times and marks set in the girls events. The boys also had 8 new top 5 results recorded although no new #1’s.

To further show how strong this meet was and how the warm weather no doubt added to the results there was a combined total of 550 PR’s and SB’s set over the 8 hours of the South Sound Classic. The girls had 166 PR’s and 112 SB’s and the boys finished with 192 PR’s and 80 SB’s. All total there were 358 new personal records and 192 season best marks on the day.

Special thanks to www.athletic.net for their tremendous coverage and website. This is the best individual sport website there is with great team and individual coverage. Check out the link if you are a track and field fan the information available on Athletic.net is incredible.

Link to the South Sound Classic Broadcast on the NFHS Network (Subscription required) on-demand

Team Results

Combined Results

Champions Emerald Ridge 75 points
2nd Glacier Peak 71 points
2nd Gig Harbor 71 points
4th Curtis 68 points

Boys Results
Champions Glacier Peak 48 points
2nd Puyallup 38 points
3rd Spanaway Lake 36 points
4th Gig Harbor 33 points
4th Olympia 33 points

Girls Results
Champions Emerald Ridge 71 points
2nd Federal Way 49 points
3rd South Kitsap 46 points
4th Curtis 44 points
5th Bainbridge 38.5 points

Female Athlete of the Meet
Cassandra Atkins of Federal Way

Cass Atkins of Federal Way was named the Female Athlete of the Meet sweeping her 3 events. Atkins won the 200m in a time of 25.00 flat which moved her to the #2 time in the state so far this season. Cass then took over the top leaps in the state winning both the Long Jump and Triple Jump. Atkins soared 19-04.25 in the long jump and sailed to the 3-jump win at 46-10.5.

Atkins is also a regular member of the 4×100 relay tea but did not run in Saturday’s race but her teammates covered well for her as they won the event anyway.

ESN talks with Cass Atkins

Male Athlete of the Meet
Matteo Ganje of Glacier Peak

Matteo Ganje of Glacier Peak was the one to beat in the sprints and won 2 of his 3 events and just missing in his 3rd event. Ganje blew past the field in the 100m just off his best time of the year in a 10.88. Ganje was the anchor in the 4×100 relay that G-P won in a time of 43.00. Ganje then just missed in the 200m losing to LeRoy Horton of Curtis by 100th of a second, 21.66 to 21.65.

We talked with Emerald Ridge Head Coach Bob Frey whose team took their own Championship as one of the host teams. He talked about the event coming into it’s own and how important it is to start getting that postseason feel. Frey is super proud of his team who not only performed but as the host team also had many other duties to make sure the day went off with out a hitch.

Emerald Ridge Head Coach and South Sound Classic Track Meet Coordinator Bob Frey

Below are the top 8 results of all the events along with video interviews and video replays of the running events. The track portion of track and field remains easy to cover but trying to get great coverage of the field events remains a struggle with so many events going on at one time. We continue to try and figure out ways to make this coverage better so we apologize that most of ouor video coverage is on the running events.

Also there is a large photo gallery at the bottom of this page. Let us be clear about the materials on this post. All athletes, their schools, parents and fans HAVE our permission to take and use any of these materials for their personal use. Please use any image or video for your own use, no attribution or further permission is needed from Eli Sports Networ.