James Bauman (100) becomes Putnam’s 1st boys track state champion since 2004: ‘I was ready for it’

“I had a lot of built-up energy for this. All through the winter, even during football season, I was thinking about track, getting ready for track.”

By René Ferrán 

EUGENE — No Putnam sprinter had ever held the title “Fastest boy in the state” for winning a 100-meter state championship. 

Heck, no Putnam boy had won a state title — period — since Blake Harrington in the triple jump in 2004.

Junior James Bauman wasn’t alive when Harrington left Hayward Field with a gold medal, but he was the one to end both streaks Saturday afternoon at the OSAA Class 5A state championships, winning the 100 in a wind-aided 10.77 seconds.

“I had a lot of built-up energy for this,” Bauman said. “All through the winter, even during football season, I was thinking about track, getting ready for track. Then, spring came, and I was ready for it.”

Bauman finished sixth at the state meet last spring and hadn’t broken 11 seconds until late April, when he finished third in the Varsity division at the Jesuit Twilight Relays.

He won the NWOC district title a week ago, then brought the second-fastest qualifying time to Saturday’s final behind district rival Cohen Hall of Canby. 

He was not to be denied in the final, exploding out of the blocks in the lead, then holding off Hall and Wilsonville’s Cooper Hiday, who finished three-thousandths of a second apart to give the NWOC a 1-2-3 finish.

“I feel like I have pretty good blocks, but my second half of my race is my weak spot,” Bauman said. “I could see in my peripheral vision them coming up on me, but I’m glad I held it through all the way.”