TACOMA – Seven Spartans made the trek to Mount Tahoma High in Tacoma last week to compete at the Washington State 2015 Track & Field State Championships, the biggest stage for high school track and field in the state.

The top eight in each event were awarded a medal and a spot on the award ceremony podium.

The first day, Thursday, May 28, had Bainbridge’s Sarah Lucioni in the 3A high jump finals, where she matched her career best jump of 5-foot-02.

There were five girls who jumped that same height and the tie-breaker, based on how many attempts it took to clear that height, put Lucioni on the podium in seventh place overall.

Only three managed to clear a higher jump.

Lastly on Thursday, were the preliminaries of the 4×400 meter relay, where the Spartan team of Lindsay Wienkers, Aerin Amore, Natalie Ackerley and Mikelle Ackerley ran a season best time of 4:00.15, which seeded them fourth for Saturday’s final.

On Friday, Mikelle Ackerley ran in the prelims of the 800-meter race in a time of 2:15.50, which seeded her seventh for the Saturday final (with the top eight advancing).

Saturday morning had Ackerley back on the starting line for the 800-meter finals. This race saw the Metro League dominate the field with four of the top five from the Spartans’ league.

Ackerley managed to finish fifth, with a time of 2:15.44.

The 4×400 meter relay was the last event of the meet and the Spartan team gave a very credible effort, leading the race with 200 meters to go. They finished fourth, which was their seed position, in a time of 4:00.55 — just .37 away from third.

The relay team was, according to school officials, the second fastest in BHS history.

Mikelle Ackerley, a senior, competed in her fourth state meet in the 800-meter race and third 4×400 meter relay. She currently holds the school record for 800 meters.

Her sister Natalie will compete for Washington State University next year, Lindsay Wienkers is off to Colorado State and Aerin Amore will be back for her senior year.

Sarah Lucioni will be back for her junior year in the high jump.

Head coach Andy Grimm was pleased that all of the Spartan state participants performed extremely well and earned a spot on the awards podium.

He also noted that many Bainbridge athletes that did not qualify out of the extremely tough District 2 Championship meet that Bainbridge competed in last week had times and jumps that were superior to marks achieved at state by athletes from other districts, so there was a lot to be proud of.

According to Grimm, the future looks very bright for BHS track and field, even though there are some seniors that will be hard to replace.

However, there are even very promising eighth-graders coming up next year from Woodward and Hyla, he added.