By Bill Poehler • Statesman Journal

May 15, 2008

West Salem's Jon Snyder (left) and Sprague's Forrest Jarvi run shoulder-to-shoulder to the finish line Wednesday in the boys 800 meter run during the Central Valley Conference district track meet at McCulloch Stadium. Jarvi held on to win the race by 0.03 seconds.

West Salem scored 156 points, beating out second-place North Salem's 113.5 effort.

Chase Sexton, Jordan Bishop, Zach Chong and Jake Simpson all won district championships on Wednesday.

Sexton won his third consecutive district championship in the shot put to go along with his fourth district championship in the discus.

The Boise State signee almost missed the finals, though.

The defending 6A state champion in the discus threw his first two throws of competition were out of bounds and his final of preliminaries was a conservative put that got him into the finals.

Once there, Sexton uncorked a distance of 55 feet, 1/2 inch to beat Sprague junior Alex Cartwright's personal record 53-9.

Bishop, last year's top point scorer at the 6A state meet, finally won a district event this year when he triumphed in the 400 meters.

Chong, seeded fourth in the triple jump, put in a leap of 43-9 to beat out Moran's 43-1/2. Moran won the long jump and high jump Tuesday.

Simpson won the hotly contested 110 hurdles with a time of 15.23, 0.25 faster than North Salem senior Michael Kendrick..

Sprague senior Forrest Jarvi won the 800 and 1,500 for the second consecutive year.

He took off fast in the 1,500 and won the race in 4:03.55, six seconds in front of Redmond's Paden Snell.

"I didn't mean to go out quite that fast," said Jarvi, who has signed to compete in track at Montana State. "I wanted to have the lead, but I didn't out quite that fast.

"Once I went out that fast, there's nothing you can really do except hold on. I was, I think, fortunate that no one chased me right off the bat."

The 800, in which Jarvi placed fifth in state last season, was much closer.

West Salem senior Jon Snyder took the early lead, but Jarvi tracked him down by the end of the first lap. Coming to the wire, Jarvi inched out Snyder, 1:57.95 to 1:57.98.

Cartwright, Sprague's standout junior, wrapped up the javelin with a mark of 192 feet, even, 15 feet better than second-place Paul Herriot of McNary to win his first district championship.

"It's just great," said Cartwright, a national junior champion in the event last summer. "I wanted to get it last year, but I'm glad I got it this year."

Cartwright recorded top three places in all three throwing events.