The weather at the Division I state track meet Saturday at Dimond High School in Anchorage lurched back and forth between sunny brilliant and rainy cold.

So did the performance of the Soldotna boys track and field team.

In the end, the skies cleared just in time for the Stars boys to win a team title, tying with Chugiak at 72 points.

The SoHi girls finished third with 62 points after a far more steady performance, with Chugiak winning with 107 and Dimond second at 97. The Stars won three of the four relays.

The Soldotna boys won their second title, adding to one in 1994.

“Just a roller coaster of adversity, man,” Soldotna head coach Phil Leck said of his boys. “We could have won six events, and we won two.”

As Soldotna throws coach Galen Brantley Jr. has said, all state titles are not created equal.

State titles for Kenai Peninsula schools going against the biggest schools in the state have been rare.

According to the numbers of the Alaska School Activities Association, only three schools in the 18-team Division I are smaller than Soldotna’s 695. West Anchorage tops the division with 1,702 students.

Soldotna graduated its first class in 1980. Since then, SoHi coaches to win Division I titles are Mark Devenney (boys cross-country in 1999, 2000, 2001, boys track in 1994, girls track in 1996 and 1997), Sohail Marey (girls and boys swimming in 2002), Steve Johnston (boys swimming in 1993) and Dan Gensel (girls basketball in 1993).

Pete Dickinson has girls state wrestling titles — a division open to any school in the state — in 2023 and 2024. If the history of now-closed Skyview High School is rolled into SoHi, Neldon Gardner makes the roll with Division I wrestling titles in the 1996-97 and 1998-99 school years.

Leck started with the track and field program in 2013 and became solo head coach in 2015.

“It’s something that I’ve invested a lot of time and energy in, in the last decade, and something I’m extremely proud of,” Leck said, also crediting his coaching staff. “These kids buy in. It’s a culture.

“We’ve had a lot of success on the track, but we haven’t been able to get over that mountain, and that mountain’s hard.”

Leck said that though his boys team made mistakes, they were mistakes made due to the desire to win. He said what was important was how the team responded.

“We were the favorites on paper,” he said. “We just didn’t have a very good meet, but our kids were able to face the adversity we did.”

Everything started off innocently enough. Luke Miller finished second in the shot put with a toss of 51 feet, 9.5 inches, on Friday.

Saturday, the 3,200-meter relay began the meet with a runner-up finish at 8 minutes, 13.13 seconds. Wyatt Faircloth followed by finishing second and setting a school record at 15.06 in the 110 hurdles, with William Klein fifth in 16.07.

Ketchikan’s Jason Lorig and Soldotna’s Tyce Escott then engaged in a battle for the ages in the 100.

Coming in, Lorig was the fastest 100 sprinter in state prep history, while Escott was third. Lorig edged Escott 10.82 to 10.83 in cool temps into a slight headwind. Lorig’s state meet record from last season is 10.81.

“I was looking to win, but I wasn’t mad,” Escott said. “He’s the state record holder. I was looking to make it close.”

The roller coaster really got going in the 800-meter relay, when Escott and Wyatt Faircloth missed a handoff and the relay didn’t finish.

Then came a wild 400 relay, where SoHi’s and Chugiak’s chances at a team title swung back and forth. Soldotna had run the fastest time on Alaska soil the week before, but Lokeni Wong and Escott had trouble with a handoff, costing the Stars time.

“An uncharacteristic mistake for us to make,” Leck said. “Lokeni to Tyce has been so good.”

SoHi came all the way back to take second in 44.17. Chugiak didn’t finish the relay due to injury, in the process stalling Ketchikan and allowing the Stars to make up valuable places.

After James Innes got fourth for SoHi in the 400 at 50.84 seconds, Faircloth hit the last barrier in the 300 hurdles while battling for first place and didn’t finish.

Leck said Faircloth could have taken a stutter step and accepted second, or gone for the win. Anybody who watched Faircloth’s decorated career at inside linebacker and running back for the Stars could have probably guessed which option was chosen.

“You can’t fault the kid,” Leck said. “He wanted to be a state champion in the 300 hurdles.”

Jayden Yeager was fifth in the 300 hurdles at 43.30 and Klein was sixth at 44.79 to set the stage for the final two events of the meet.

In order for SoHi to have a chance at the team title, Escott would have to win the 200 and SoHi’s 1,600-meter relay would also have to win.

“Everybody lifted up Tyce,” Leck said. “We knew we had to have him in the 2 and every kid got in his ear.”

Escott won at 22.43 in a driving rain, with Lorig blowing out a shoe and not finishing. That allowed Chugiak to move up sixth in the race and grab an extra point.

So the stage was set for a rollicking 1,600-meter relay. SoHi’s Ethan Anding, Brenden Jones, James Innes and Parker Richards had the top seed time at 3:28.67, but there were six other teams at 3:32.58 or lower. And none of the Stars runners had ever won a state event.

To at least tie for the state title, SoHi needed to win the event and have Chugiak, which was seeded second, finish third or worse.

Anding led off, constantly coughing before the race in the starting blocks. He had scratched the 800 due to the cough.

“I’ve had this cough for so long, I don’t even know how long I’ve had it,” he said.

But he got the baton to Jones in the lead. Jones kept a slight lead, but a really smooth handoff to Richards opened up a nice gap.

“Handoffs are big on our team,” Jones said.

Richards was able to keep a slight lead and another nifty handoff put Innes out in front of the pack.

“I was trying to build that lead for James, because I knew some fast guys were on that last leg,” Richards said.

Those fast guys had caught Innes by the homestretch. Innes was on the inside of a four-wide pack of Chugiak, Dimond and West Valley.

Briefly, the pack crowded Innes to the point where he was on the line of the inside lane with state relay and team titles on the line.

“I was basically in Lane 0, tip-toeing the cones,” Innes said.

SoHi won at 3:28.87, with West Valley second at 3:29.06 and Chugiak third at 3:29.13.

“That was all heart,” Leck said. “That wasn’t James, it was him doing what he needed to do for the team.”

The Stars had won the last two events of the day — their only wins of the meet — to take the title.

“It’s huge and it’s fulfilling,” said Innes, the victim of close runner-up finishes in relays in previous state appearances. “It’s just really awesome.”

While the boys got the title, Leck said the girls had the better meet.

“We were 20 meters away from sweeping the relays in Division I state track,” Leck said. “I mean, come on man, that’s insane.”

The girls 400 relay of Anaulie Sedivy, Sophia Jedlicki, Shiloh Zichko and Sarah Brown reset their school record at 50.14 in getting the win.

“We were expecting to do some really good things on this track today,” Sedivy said. “We’ve been working hard.

“Being in Lane 1, the curve is kind of killer, but we just used it to our advantage and made it work.”

Sedivy handed to Jedlicki, who said she felt she stayed pretty even with everybody, but by the time Jedlicki handed to Zichko, a nice gap had opened.

Zichko said Brown got the baton with a lead of 3 to 5 meters.

“From there, I tried to go as fast as I could,” Brown said. “I heard people in the crowd yelling my name, so I knew I had to go.”

The 800 relay of Lucy Uhlir, Zichko, Jedlicki and Brown ran 1:44.49 to break a 1996 school record.

“We really like our relays,” Uhlir said. “Somehow, they always work out.”

Said Brown: “It’s our coaches. That’s what make it.”

Zichko said the team was just hoping for 1:47, while Jedlicki said she just wanted to win.

“We get really competitive sometimes and overperform,” Uhlir said. “It’s a good little habit.”

The team said Uhlir got a solid start, Jedlicki got a nice lead in the second leg, Zichko expanded that lead a bit and Brown brought it home.

“I was terrified,” Brown said. “Usually, it’s the fastest girls on the last leg. Even if we’re ahead, somebody could have a faster time than me.”

The 3,200 relay of Sasha Brott, Kate Cox, Katie DeBardelaben and Annie Burns won in 9:47.64.

Brott led off and took the lead with about 300 meters to go, splitting a personal record.

“I didn’t really have a plan,” she said. “I just wanted to run strong and fast.”

DeBardelaben was up next and increased the lead by also splitting a PR.

“I have no idea where that came from,” she said. “I dug deep.”

Cox is a sophomore in her first year of track. She said she’s the slowest of the four, and just wanted to keep the lead for the team. The last 100 meters were particularly tough.

“I was really trying,” she said. “My legs were numb. I couldn’t really feel them.”

Burns is a senior captain who won a state 3,200 relay title as a freshman, but that didn’t make holding the lead any easier. Especially since she would later scratch in the 800 due to illness.

“To be honest, I love being in second and catching up,” she said. “It’s nerve-racking being in first and having somebody behind you.

“I never knew how far behind she was.”

The Stars topped Chugiak by more than 7 seconds.

SoHi’s 1,600-meter relay finished second in 4:04.02, while Jedlicki was second in a loaded 400 at 58.33 to reset her school record.

DeBardelaben was fifth in the 1,600 at 5:19.36 and sixth in the triple jump at 33—8, while Sedivy was fourth in the 300 hurdles at 48.54, Hallie Fischer was fourth in the high jump at 4—10 and Juliet Innes was sixth in the discus at 103—0.