Sequim Gazette staff

Are the Sequim Wolves ready for the 2015 season? Looks like it.

Sequim athletes set a pair of meet records and nearly saw a school high jump mark snapped at the Port Angeles Invitational on March 21.

Leading the way was junior Waverly Shreffler, who broke a 23-year-old invite standard in the 400-meter race. Shreffler completed the one-lap circuit in 60.40 seconds, breaking the 1992 mark of 60.47 set by Port Angeles Roughrider Laura Burkhardt.

Shreffler also had a hand — or legs, rather — in breaking North Kitsap’s 2010 mark in the 4×400 relay. Shreffler, Gretchen Happe, Heidi Vereide and Sadie Woods cruised to a 4:19.47 finish, breaking the Vikings’ standard by 1.7 seconds.

The efforts helped Sequim’s girls finish third as a team with 103 points, behind meet champ North Kitsap (136) and just a notch behind host Port Angeles (104).

Sequim’s boys got strong performances all around in topping the 13-team field with 114.5 points, edging runner-up North Kitsap (112.5) and Olympic (94).

Junior Jackson Oliver won the high jump with a leap of 6 feet, 5.5 inches — just a half-inch off the school record set by Jayson Brocklesby at an Olympic League sub-district meet in 2013.

Oliver’s was one of four first-place finishes for the Wolves’ boys. Senior Alex Barry showed few ill effects from an ankle injured during the basketball season, winning the meet’s javelin competition with a 168-foot, 4-inch effort.

Senior Josh Cibene, another 2014 state meet qualifier, took top honors in the pole vault with an 11-6 mark while junior Oscar Herrera, who qualified for state last year in both hurdles events, placed well to start the spring campaign. Herrera took first in the 110 high hurdles (15.62) by nearly a minute over runner-up Christian Neary of Olympic and took second in the 300 hurdles with a 41.10 effort. Herrera’s mark would have tied the meet record, but Kingston’s Garret Rouser’s 39.98 finish snapped Chris Cooke’s 41.1-second mark set in 1980.

Junior Brendon Despain paced Sequim’s long distance crew with a second-place finish in the 1500 meters (4:19.44) behind state cross country champ Ryan Clarke of Port Townsend, and Sequim junior Christian Ash was fourth in the 3,000 meters.

Oliver had a busy day for the Wolves, placing third in the triple jump (39-10.5) and fourth in the long jump (18-3).

Sequim’s boys relay teams finished strong, with the 4×100 squad (Barry Herrera, Curtis Gorr and Jason Springer) taking second with a 45.76 mark and the 4×400 relay team of Despain, Herrera, Springer and Kane Stoddard taking third at 3:39.80.

Stoddard, a junior, took third in the 400-meter race in 55.01 seconds.

On the girls’ side, Vereide, a senior, added a win in the long jump, leaping to a 15-9.75 mark to win the event by more than a foot. She also placed third in the triple jump.

Happe, a junior, won the 800-meter race in 2:36.80.

Sequim’s girls had four second-place finishes, including Shreffler in the 200-meter race (27.73), junior Mattie Clark in the 100-meter hurdles (17.92), Emily Van Dyken in the pole vault (8 feet) and Sequim’s 4×100 relay team (Woods, Telicia Busby, Molley Earley and Anna White) at 55.82 seconds. Earley, a sophomore, took third in the 300-meter hurdles.

See full meet results at athletic.net; search for “Sequim.”

The Wolves are back in action today, March 25, as they take on Port Angeles, Chimacum and host Olympic at Silverdale Stadium.

Select Sequim athletes compete at the April 4 Lil’ Norway Invitational in Poulsbo and the April 11 Tacoma Invitational.