Norton breaks Baker High shot put record with 41-foot throw

A 29-year-old Baker High School girls shot put record fell Tuesday when sophomore Kate Norton threw 41 feet, 10 inches in Ontario, pushing past the 41-foot, 3-inch mark Sarah Cotton set in 1997. The throw broke one of Baker’s most durable field-event standards and put Norton’s name at the top of a list that had lasted nearly three decades.

The record-setting toss came during a three-way meet with Ontario and Vale at Ontario High School, and it was the clearest sign yet that Norton’s progression has gone well beyond a single hot day. She entered the spring already established as one of Baker’s top throwers, after winning the district shot put title as a freshman in 2025 and competing at the Oregon Class 4A state meet in Eugene.

Norton’s latest mark also fit a pattern that has been building since middle school. In April 2024, she broke her own eighth-grade shot put record with a throw of 41 feet, 6.5 inches at the Wildcat Invite in La Grande, then improved that to 43 feet, 3.5 inches at Crane. That same spring, she also broke a 36-year-old Baker middle-school discus record with a toss of 98 feet, 3 inches and later won the shot put at the Oregon Middle School Meet of Champions in Corvallis, a meet that drew athletes from 250 schools.

Her early high school results have matched that promise. Norton won the shot put in Baker’s March 20, 2025 season opener at the Ontario Icebreaker, then won the shot put and discus at the Baker-Vale-Ontario three-way meet on April 8, 2025, while placing second in the javelin. Baker’s girls scored 223.99 points and the boys finished with 286 in that meet, underscoring how much Norton has contributed to a strong overall program.

She kept that momentum going again this month, winning both the shot put and discus at the Wayne Invitational on April 10 at Vale High School. With the postseason still ahead, Norton now gives Baker a proven scoring threat in multiple throwing events, and a new school record that has already reset the standard for what Baker High can expect from its field athletes.