TACOMA — The theme of the state championship weekend for the Tumwater High School boys track team is a thirst that was left unquenched.
Call it the standard of improvement. Longtime coach Rich Brown, who retired in 2015, instilled the mindset of using every practice and every track attempt to elevate to a higher level and to never be satisfied.
Ten years later, that standard hasn’t been touched as head coach Jordan Stray has taken over at Tumwater. If anything, the standard has evolved, not to a level where anything outside of sheer perfection is unacceptable, but to a confidence that the record books can be rewritten any day of the week.
Case in point: the T-Birds stood on the podium at the conclusion of the 2A/3A/4A state championship meet at Mount Tahoma High School Saturday and hardly cracked smiles as they held their second-place team trophy, their first since 2019.
Moments prior, Tumwater’s 4x400 relay team broke the school record in a runner-up effort. A win in the weekend’s final event would have clinched Tumwater’s first boys team championship in school history. Instead, they finished second, just one point behind champion Anacortes.
As junior Blake Kirkpatrick and seniors Josh Schlect, David Malroy and Cash Short walked off the track, their tears weren’t of joy. They were of disappointment and heartbreak for a job left unfinished.
“It’s really our main event. It’s us four every practice training together for that 4x400 specifically,” Short said. “We worked so hard, but it’s not always a fairy tale.”
Tumwater was much happier to break a school record when the 4x100 quartet of Xavier Bunn, Short, Malroy and Kirkpatrick won the event in a blazing 41.78 seconds. Finisher Kirkpatrick screamed and jumped for joy after leaving opponents in his dust and establishing a new best 4x100 time for the third meet this season.
“I just let everything loose. It’s what my body wanted to do. I started smiling with like 10 meters to go. I knew I had won it,” Kirkpatrick said of crossing the finish line. “It meant the world, especially with that group of boys. We’ve been fighting all season for that state championship.”
Stray said the 4x100 squad went into the event with a lot of confidence, built by years of friendship and connection through sports.
“They’ve been together since childhood and have been multi-sport athletes. They spend a lot of time during the season trying to get faster and in the weight room,” he said. “I’m so happy for them.”
In total, Tumwater scored 74 points over the three-day weekend and secured medals in 11 events, including two first-place finishes. Bunn had a hand in both first-place medals, winning the 2A triple jump with a personal record Friday before serving as the starter for the 4x100 relay team Saturday.
Stray knew the boys were capable of hoisting a team trophy and said the T-Birds will grow to appreciate what they accomplished despite the sour taste in their mouths this weekend.
“This has been the best group of hard workers I’ve seen in a while. We came in with a high standard, shooting for the stars,” he said.
Malroy picked up his second long jump medal of his career Saturday, setting a new PR of 22 feet, 2.75 inches to finish in second place. Kirkpatrick earned top-five finishes in both open sprint events, including third in the 200 meters and fifth in the 100 meters. Short collected his first individual state hardware when he placed fourth in the 400 meters at 50.12 seconds, and senior Reid Crumley scored a fifth-place medal in the 300-meter hurdles with a PR of 40.07 seconds.
Senior Malijah Tucker was unable to punch his ticket to the discus finals Saturday after a runner-up effort in the shot put on Thursday. Junior pole vaulter Donny Bush Jr. came up short of a finals trip, as did W.F. West senior Ryan Hilliker.
A staggering eight state qualifiers will graduate from Tumwater, leaving Bush and Kirkpatrick as the lone returners who made the trip to Tacoma. Kirkpatrick said he’s ready for the challenge of leading the program as a senior in 2026 and building on the foundation laid by the class of 2025.
“I’m just gonna give everything I’ve got and not hold back in any race I do so we can come back to state next year and do some magical stuff,” he said.
