MONMOUTH — From the first hurdle Saturday, Frauke Fuchs was in control.

The Coquille runner took the lead early in the finals of the 300-meter hurdles at the Class 3A state meet and never gave it back, cruising to victory — the only win by a South Coast athlete on the final day of the state meets for Class 3A, Class 2A and Class 1A at Western Oregon University in Monmouth.

“I feel really good,” Fuchs said of the race. “It was almost perfect.”

Fuchs finished in a personal-best 46.27 seconds to easily beat runner-up Eloise Miller of Catlin Gabel, who was timed in 47.04.

The German exchange student later completed a four-medals-in-four-events run at the state meet by anchoring Coquille to seventh place in the 4x400-meter relay.

“I think it’s awesome,” Fuchs said. “I didn’t think I’d do that good up here.”

On the opening day of the meet, she placed fourth in the long jump, with a personal best, and also took fourth in the javelin.

Fuchs was the only South Coast athlete who got to stand on top of the podium on the second day of the meet, but several others came close.

Gold Beach had a day of seconds Saturday.

Mitch Longwill had a monstrous personal best in the discus, with a throw of 157 feet, 1 inch. But  Bo Johnson of Toledo threw 167-4 to take the title.

Longwill, who a week earlier was preparing for the state golf tournament with Gold Beach’s team, was pleased with his big throw.

“It was good,” he said. “It was a PR.”

But he would have liked a victory.

“I like winning, but this kid over here (threw better),” he said, looking over at Johnson, who also had a personal best.

Longwill briefly led the competition before Johnson let loose his big throw.

“He scared me,” Johnson said.

Longwill’s Gold Beach teammates came up just short of victories in three different events Saturday.

Vale’s Zack Hevner, one of the standout athletes of the meet, was responsible for denying the Panthers victories several times.

In the 100 meters, Hevner edged Gold Beach’s David Bonotto.

“I would have liked to get first, but I’m not near as fast as he is,” Bonotto said.

Hevner’s winning time of 11.38 seconds was relatively slow, because of a challenging crossbreeze. Bonotto finished in 11.50.

A few minutes later, Hevner beat Nathan Moore to the finish, winning the 400 meters in 49.83 seconds. Moore was timed in 50.52.

Hevner also won the 200 meters, while Moore finished third, and later capped his big day by anchoring Vale to victory in the 4x400-meter relay and the team title in the meet.

Moore had been eyeing a school record in the 400, and just missed. But he was pleased with his effort on a hot afternoon.

“I was real happy with that,” Moore said, adding that in the 200, “I didn’t have much power in my legs.”

Gold Beach’s Sydney Snook had her second runner-up finish of the meet, in the 1,500 meters.

She led the race until the final 200 meters, when Valley Catholic’s Meghan Blood pulled away for the win. Blood, who also beat Snook in Friday’s 3,000-meter race, crossed the line in 4:56.87, while Snook finished in 4:58.33.

The Gold Beach freshman wasn’t terribly disappointed, though.

“Second place is good,” she said.

Snook didn’t mind being passed late in the race because she ran the way she wanted to, from the front.

“I was just going to run my race and see what happened,” she said.

Several other South Coast athletes had strong finishes on Saturday.

Myrtle Point’s Garren Hitner was in second place throughout the javelin competition until Cascade Christian’s Daniel Kinney edged him by an inch on the final throw.

Jimmy Crook of Grant Union threw 178-2, while Kinney had a throw of 177-5 and Hitner’s best was 177-4.

Hitner, who also finished sixth in the high jump, considered the day to be disappointing.

“It was a really frustrating day,” he said.

The disappointment was primarily because Hitner expected better — he won the state title in the javelin as a freshman and never returned to that level in his final three years.

Teammate Casey Cagley also had a disappointing day despite a high placing after winning the pole vault on Friday. Cagley was seeded second in the high hurdles, and finished third, but he came down awkwardly after an early hurdle and lost his balance, costing him a chance to battle Amity’s Jeremy Kreutzbender for the title.

The other big disappointment for a South Coast school came for Bandon in the meet-ending 4x400-meter relay.

The Tigers muffed a handoff late in the race when they were running in the middle of the pack and had to settle for a seventh-place finish a day after breaking the school record with the second fastest qualifying time.

But all of Saturday wasn’t disappointing for the Tigers.

Beth Castro finished second in the pole vault for the second straight year. Though she had hoped to beat her personal best of 10 feet, she was pleased with her place. Waldport’s Misty Corwin cleared 11-6 to win the title.

Castro later finished sixth in the high hurdles, with teammate Karli Crook eighth.

“I’ve been sick all this year,” Castro said. “That’s not bad for missing most of the season.”

Teammate Cole Scherer had a pair of fourth-place finishes. His one good throw in the javelin, 176-6, was almost enough to catch Hitner for third place. He later had the same place in the 800 meters, finishing fourth in 2:01.29.

“I was hoping for under 2 minutes,” Scherer said. “We went out slower than I thought we’d be.”

The first lap was about 61 seconds, Scherer said.

Like Castro, Scherer was slowed by an ongoing illness most of the season, which kept him from his preferred 1,500 and 3,000 meters. He’ll get one more shot next spring, when he is a senior.

Another senior distance runner, Coquille’s Levi Dieu, had a good finish to his career Saturday.

Dieu, who earned a trip to the state meet with a strong finish at last week’s Sunset Conference meet, finished sixth in the 1,500.

“I’ve never made it here before,” he said. “Just making it was exciting.”

While Dieu ran track throughout his high school career, Reedsport’s Jason Fishel only picked up the sport this spring. He finished fourth in the long jump, cleared a personal-best 5 feet, 10 inches to take eighth in the high jump and anchored Reedsport’s 4x100-meter relay team to sixth place.

Fishel said Nick Riley, a friend and former Reedsport track star, talked him into trying the sport.

“I wasn’t having fun with baseball,” he said. “Track was more relaxing, and I could keep up with my homework better.”

Now he wishes he had tried track sooner.

“This has definitely been the experience of a lifetime,” he said. “I’m so proud of our relay team. We PR’d back-to-back.”

Reedsport’s Ismael Osorio placed sixth in the discus a day after taking third in the shot put.

Coquille freshman Allison Cook had an emotional seventh-place finish in the shot put, dancing for joy after she set a personal best with a throw of 34-11⁄4.

Cook had thrown 34 feet in the first meet of the season and not reached that mark again until Saturday. That throw, plus getting a medal, made the experience rewarding.

“That’s perfect,” she said of her place. “My goal was to make it into the top eight and go from there.”

The other South Coast placer in the Class 3A meet Saturday was Bandon’s Rachel Ledig, who took eighth in the 800 meters.

In the Class 1A meet, Pacific’s Jesse Culley took eighth in the shot put a day after placing fourth in the javelin.

Teammate Willy Wayrynen learned from his experience in the 3,000 meters Friday, when he led for nearly two laps before his quick pace and the heat got to him on the way to a 12th-place finish.

In the 800 final on Saturday, Wayrynen ran a controlled race and placed fourth.

“That was a good run,” said Wayrynen, who got to compete at state for the first time after just missing a year ago.

“It was a great experience,” he said. “I’m glad I made it this year.”

The South Coast teams finished out of the trophy chase on Saturday.

Vale’s boys and Catlin Gabel’s girls took the Class 3A titles, while Portland Christian’s boys took the Class 2A boys title and Lakeview and Oakridge shared the girls crown. The Class 1A titles went to Southwest Christian’s boys and the girls from Sherman, who scored a whopping 111 points, second most ever by a girls team to the 112 the Huskies scored last year.

Gold Beach’s boys had the top finish among South Coast teams, placing seventh in the Class 3A meet while Myrtle Point, Reedsport and Bandon also were in the top 13.

“We didn’t have too many guys here,” said Moore of the Panthers, who had just four boys at state. “I thought we did pretty good for what we had.”