More than two dozen La Conner students will be taking a field trip to Yakima next week.

Make that a track and field trip.

Twenty-five Braves and team managers will represent La Conner at the Washington State 2B Track and Field Championships May 28-30 at Zaepfel Stadium on the Eisenhower High School campus.

They earned the 400-mile round trip bus ride, and more important, the opportunity to vie for hardware against top-flight competition from across Washington state based on their performances at Northwest Bi-District trials in Coupeville on Saturday.

The top two finishers and an alternate in each Bi-District event garnered berths to the state meet.

The robust Yakima-bound La Conner contingent includes the versatile “McJenkins” quartet — sisters Maeve and Nora McCormick and Kiana and Faith Jenkins — and senior thrower Flint Huizenga, who qualified for state in the shot put, discus and javelin for a second straight year.

Faith Jenkins, a freshman sprinter, will be defending the State 2B Girls’ 100 meter dash title she won in Yakima a year ago as an eighth grader. At Coupeville, she captured the Bi-District Girls’ 100 and 200 meter sprint crowns, hitting the tape in 12.77 and 25.58, respectively.

A sophomore, Kiana Jenkins placed second in 1:02.00 to Friday Harbor’s Stella Carlie (58.91) in the 400 meters. More impressive, though, was the split she clocked running the second leg of La Conner’s 4×400 relay.

Taking the baton in fourth place, Kiana Jenkins pulled the Braves quartet in front with a 1:00.68 effort. La Conner wound up second in the event, trailing only Mount Vernon Christian.

“Kiana ran great in the 4×400,” La Conner head coach Peter Voorhees said. “We knew they had to be in first place after Kiana’s leg to qualify for State.”

Voorhees praised assistant coach Linda Gudmundson for the Braves’ success in relays at Coupeville.

“Coach Gudmundson does a great job lining up the relays to put them in the best position possible leg by leg,” he said.

As evidence, the tireless McJenkins crew ran away with top Bi-District honors in both the 4×100 (50.75) and 4×200 (1:47.38) relays.

In addition, sophomore Nora McCormick prevailed in the 100 and 300 meter hurdles events and Maeve McCormick, a senior, won the pole vault. Nora McCormick clocked a 15.93 in the 100 hurdles and a 48.52 in the 300s. Maeve McCormick cleared the pole vault bar at 10-0.

Reese Bird was also an individual winner for the Braves. The sophomore thrower claimed the discus with a toss of 98-0. She was also runner-up in the javelin at 103-7.

Senior Isabelle Villard and eighth grader Cecilia Keith added second place showings for the La Conner girls. Villard mined silver in the shot put at 28-05.50. Keith took second in the high jump with a leap of 4-08.

As a team, the Braves placed second among six schools on the girls’ leaderboard with 149 points to Mount Vernon Christian’s 193.

The La Conner boys, meanwhile, wound up third overall at 98 points behind co-champions Coupeville and Mount Vernon Christian, who each tallied 129.

Huizenga led the way with a dominant win in the javelin, recording a personal best throw of 168-01, and a triumph in the shot put at 43-4.25. He added a second place finish in the discus with a heave of 146-05.

Voorhees, whose 180-foot throw in the javelin two decades ago set a Skagit County Track & Field Championship Meet record that still stands today, said Huizenga’s prowess in all three throwing events is unusual.

“You generally see throwers do well in the shot and discus or in the javelin, but not all three,” Voorhees said. “So, Flint is in some real rarified company.”

Sophomore Yandel Rosales-Rojas, despite dealing with a hamstring strain, enjoyed a solid day at Coupeville as well.

He ran a close second to Friday Harbor’s Channing Kleine in the 100 meters, being narrowly edged at the finish line 11.50-11.58. Rosales-Rojas also joined Keaton Bailey, Ryan Reynolds and Max Page to finish third in the 4×100 relay, their time of 45.24 good enough to qualify for the State field.

Rosales-Rojas rounded out his day with a third place finish in the long jump at 20-0.75, one spot ahead of Bailey’s 19-4.0.

La Conner’s Josh Dowry secured second place in the boys’ pole vault at 9-6. He was one of five Braves — Colin Wigal, Jasio Borusinski, Marlin Bralens and John York were the others — to finish in the top ten of the event.

Sophomore Vireo Angell finished third in the 110 meter hurdles (19.36), fourth in the 300s (45.40), and joined Bailey, Reynolds and Page for a third place finish in the 4×400 relay (3.42.0).

Kale Navarrete Higgins, a junior, added to the Braves point total by placing fourth in the 110 hurdles (19.81) and seventh in the 300s (50.22).

The La Conner boys’ roster at Yakima, including alternates, will consist of Angell, Bailey, Bralens, Dowry, Huizenga, Xavier Keo, Evan Magill, Navarrete Higgins, Page, Reynolds, Rosales-Rojas and Wigal.

Bird, Maicy Bowles, Finley Hancock, Faith Jenkins, Kiana Jenkins, Keith, Madi Larson, Maeve McCormick, Nora McCormick, Amelia Schwab and Villard will travel for the Braves’ girls.

Bill Reynolds is a general assignment reporter for La Conner Community News.