Enterprise’s Knapp part of three state titles

Published 8:45 am Monday, May 23, 2022

Enterprise’s Cory Walker runs his leg during the 4x100 relay at the state track meet over the weekend.

ENTERPRISE — Zac Knapp did what everyone expected of him.

As a result, he came home with two individual state championships, a third as part of a relay team and helped the Enterprise boys get back on the podium.

Knapp swept the 1,500- and 3,000-meter runs and ran a leg of the winning 4×400 relay race, and the EHS boys finished with 49 points to take second place in the 2A state track meet May 19-20 at Hayward Field in Eugene.

The senior standout set a 2A state meet record in winning the 3,000, with his time of 8:40.32 crushing the field by more than 27 seconds. He was tested a bit more in the 1,500, but still ended up winning the event by more than five seconds with a time of 4:04.04.

The University of Idaho signee also was with Levi Ortswam, Andrew Nordtvedt and Weston Wolfe as they wrapped up the state meet late on May 20 with a win in the 4×400 relay with a winning time of 3:36.78, edging district rivals Weston-McEwen by 0.08 of a second and Heppner by 0.18 of a second.

By that point, the Outlaws were already assured second place — it was just a matter of how close they would end up to state champion Bandon. The Tigers finished with 56 points, just seven ahead of Enterprise, while the wild finish in the 4×400 resulted in Heppner, Weston-McEwen and Sheridan all tying for third with 31 points.

Enterprise’s runner-up was its highest finish since placing second four years in a row from 2011-14.

Ortswam, while playing a key role as part of the winning relay team, also helped bring in points elsewhere for the Outlaws, both individually and in relays. He took second in the finals of the 400 with a time of 51.99 — one day after posting the fastest time of 51.42 in the preliminaries, and added an eight-place time of 24.93 in the 200. He also ran on the sixth-place 4×100 relay team with Nordtvedt, Ransom Peters and Cory Walker, as the tandem turned in a time of 46.36.

Peters was sixth individually in the 100 in 11.76, and seventh in the 200 in 24.28, and Wolfe placed seventh in the 300 hurdles in 44.38. He also just missed the top eight in the triple jump, where he came in 10th.

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