Siegel setting her goals one hurdle at a time
Coaches Max Perry, Steve Moser, Anna Moser, Pat Towne, Mary Dodson, Chris Johnson. Not pictured: Dick Richmond, Jack Butler. It's been a crazy couple of weeks for Siuslaw Vikings senior Mikaela Siegel as she prepares to defend her 4A state high hurdles title in May.
Last weekend she competed unattached in the Summit Heptathlon in Bend, with three of her coaches on hand for encouragement.
A week earlier, she was running the third leg of the 4x400 relay in a special high school event at the IAAF World Championships in Portland.
"The experience was insane," Siegel said of the relay, which the Vikings won. "We worked out in the same area as the Olympic athletes, and ran on the same track.
"(World decathlon champion) Ashton Eaton was right beside us, warming up."
Siegel doesn't necessarily aspire to be the world's greatest athlete, but she is trying to make a case as a fine prospect as a heptathlete at a Division I school.
"The heptathlon gives her some options going forward, athletically, for the right school, because she's so gifted academically," Siuslaw track and field coach Chris Johnson said.
The heptathlon is not a sanctioned event by the Oregon School Activities Association, and there will be no state title at stake at season's end.
"So it's something for fun, but we're also trying to help her longterm development," Johnson said.
So she's doing the heptathlon for fun and for her future.
"It is what I'll do if I compete in college," Siegel said. "I've been working this winter on throwing. It was definitely one of my weaker areas last year."
To that end she hit the weight room hard after her final year of cross country for the Vikings. She passed on a final season of varsity basketball so that she could concentrate on her throws.
Her improvement, year over year, was significant, adding some six feet in distance in the shot put and 14 feet in the javelin over her 2015 marks.
"We'd be doing her a disservice if we didn't try to work on the areas that were weak," Johnson said. "It's a process that takes a while."
Siegel put together a solid performance at Bend, winning the opening 100-meter high hurdles on Friday and the closing 800-meter run on Saturday.
In between she had personal bests of 79 feet, 11.06 inches in the javelin and 31 feet, 1.16 inches in the shot put. feet), according to records kept by Athletics.net.
She had a serious hiccup in the high jump, failing to clear the bar in three attempts. She kept hitting the bar with her heel on the way down.
"My steps were off, so I didn't get any points at all," Siegel said. "It cost 540 or so points."
"A zero, that's just a killer in the heptathlon," Johnson said. "The good thing about Mikaela is she kept going forward, she didn't let it bother her."
The high jump was the second of the seven events, four run on Friday (100 hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200) and three on Saturday (long jump, javelin, 800).
The heptathlon was an altitude adjustment for Siegel, with Bend at more than 3,600 feet elevation. And weather conditions were tough on everyone.
"It was cold and windy both days," she said. "It actually started snowing at one point on the second day."
She settled for a score of 3,229 points, good for fourth place in the field of 13. Had she made height, she would have finished no worse than second while nearing her goal of 4,000 points for the event.
It was a fine overall performance given she only competes in two of the seven heptathlon events in season, the high hurdles and the long jump.
"She will run the highs (100-meter hurdles), that obviously will be the No. 1 priority," Johnson said. "After that, she could high jump, she could triple jump, she could long jump. She could run intermediate hurdles, she could run relays.
"There's no shortage of things she could do."
NOTES
Siuslaw's victory in the special 4x400 relay in Portland was a special moment for Vikings coach Chris Johnson. "I'm not a big fan of indoor track," he said, "but this was a great opportunity for the girls (that) we couldn't pass up."
The race featured four of the Vikings' top track-and-field athletes — Morgan Bingham (a transfer from Utah), Annmarie Precht (a transfer from Florida), Destinie Tatum and Siegel.
"Honestly, in 21 years of doing this, that's one of the most excited I've ever been," Johnson said. "The best athletes in the world are there. It's a state of the art facility, obviously. The place was packed. It was a really big deal, and the girls ran well. There's potential there."
Siegel's high hurdles time of 16.6a seconds at the Summit Heptathlon is the best in the state this season in Class 4A. ... She also has the third-best 300-meter hurdles time this season of 50.49. ...
Viking junior Destinie Tatum has the top girls 400 meters time this season of 1:01.42, which she ran March 17 in the Siuslaw Icebreaker. ...
Siuslaw juniors Morgan Bingham and Celie Mans have the No. 2 and No. 3 best times, respectively, this season in the 1,500. ...
Junior Carissa Oliver has the second-best discus throw of 120 feet, 3 inches and the fourth-best shot put of 33-7. ...
Sophomore Trent Reavis has the second-best shot put among boys with a heave of 47-5, while freshman Murray Bingham has the third-best 1,500 for boys with a time of 4:20.49. ...
The Vikings will compete in the Junction City Invitational on Saturday (April 2). Track events start at 10 a.m., field events at noon.
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