Naselle had three athletes qualify for the final of the 1B state high jump and two earned medals. Pictured on the fourth and second slots on the podium are sophomore Mylee Dunagan and eighth-grader June Miller. State champion was Odessa junior Lily Starkel, who defeated Miller in a sudden-death jump-off after the contest was tied.

YAKIMA — In a jump-off finale for the state championship, June Miller soared over the high jump bar with what appeared to be inches to spare.

Then something happened. Wind? Did she brush it?

It fell.

The Naselle eighth grader, her sister, her older teammate and their devoted coaches now had to watch.

Odessa’s Lily Starkel had a pre-jump routine that would garner applause from a Zen master. The junior stilled herself, stretched her calves and controlled her breathing, pushing her arms down yoga-style in a practiced move as if treading water.

She stepped off in a curving run. She leaped. She cleared! As she rolled off the bright red landing mat, she clapped her hands with glee.

And the first person to come across to shake her hand in congratulations was Miller, smiling broadly.

Hug

The event would be the first of three medals for Miller on Saturday. None offered comparable drama.

She, twin Halle Miller and sophomore Mylee Dunagan had swept 1B districts, placing 1-2-3 to advance to jump together at the WIAA state meet at Eisenhower High School in Yakima.

The bar had begun at 4-foot-4 Saturday morning. All 13 contestants jumped and cleared it, so up it went. Others started to falter, but all three Naselle girls cleared 4-6.

With the bar at 4-8, Dunagan and June Miller aced their first jumps. Halle Miller had three attempts, but her tournament ended. She received a low-five bump from coach Jack Osadchey and a hug from Marie Green, who coaches her in middle school.

Dunagan missed her jumps at 5-2 and placed fourth, the same medal she earned last year when she jumped 4-10. She had soared over 4-10 this year on her first attempt with daylight between her and the bar.

‘Shocked’

Eventually, June Miller, Starkel and Samantha Pfaff of Garfield Palouse remained. But all failed to clear 5-4 in three attempts.

The umpire consulted the WIAA rule book and discovered a tie triggered a jump-off with the top two competitors, taking the bar down one inch until there was a winner; Pfaff had more missed jumps, so was not included.

At 5-3, Miller and Starkel hit the bar on all three tries so it inched down to 5-2, where the contest ended.

June Miller had qualified for her first state meet in the maximum four events. She had jumped 31-11.5 in the triple jump on Friday (Dunagan earned the sixth-place medal with 33-2.75), won her heat in the 400 meter and advanced to the final of the 200.

She picked up two more medals on Saturday, finishing second in the 400 behind Emily Wilson of Willapa Valley and third in the 200.

Afterward, she reflected on a season that produced a scrapbook of headlines.

“I thought it was a really good opportunity to get moved up to race with high school, and I placed really well and ran fast, competing with other people that are better than me,” she said.

“I definitely worked really hard,” she added. “I was kind of shocked. I was, like, ‘Wow!’ It was kind of surprising that I was going up and I was breaking some records, and even high school records. That was really cool.”