The "Run-Down": South Salem Saxon Invitational

 

It has been at least 5 years since the Panthers have traveled across the Columbia River to compete as a team. It may be 50. Not quite sure yet, but regardless, it was well worth the trip today. The rain dampened the course (slowing it a little), but not the spirit of the Panthers. Our mission today was to take on 18 larger schools, most from Oregon. The results were encouraging.

 

The varsity girls took to the course first. Our first full team of the season was able to catch two of those larger teams. Senior Kendall Utter led the way with a 32nd place finish while running a season's best of 21:41.4. First time racer Sophomore Tara Duey ran stride for stride the first mile with experienced Senior Taneal Tanner, pulled away the middle mile, but the veteran senior ran her down a few yards prior to the finish chute (their times 23:47.5 and 23:48.6). The inclusion of them to the squad this week along with Senior Brandi Sherman (25:37.5) put the Lady Panthers on the District 4 scoreboard in an unofficial 3rd place ranking (only 5 of the 12 teams have ran complete teams so far this year).

 

Next up: the Varsity Boys. Knowing we needed 3-4 huge P.R.'s today to be in the running for any team awards, we found two of them from Sophomores Sean Eustis and Isaac Stinchfield. Sean's 9th place finish in 16:34.2 sliced off 25 seconds of his state meet performance time from last year while Isaac broke away from his normal training partners early and powered through a 32 second P.R. Steady Junior Noah Collins ran a solid race from start to finish shaved off 6 more seconds from last week's life time best. Senior Brendan Casey joined the team this week and found a way to round out the scoring five with a 19:11.5. The biggest P.R.'s of the week came from our pair of freshmen who proved they can race without being intimidated by the veterans. Mac Wright and Nick Stevens posted P.R.'s of 47 and 60 seconds with times of 19:15.0 and 19:20.7. For Senior Dylan Croeni, he still struggled with navigating the course when he took the lead prematurely. His winning time of 15:53.2 was fine considering he ran approximately 5,050 meters. Equally impressive was his victory breakdance with panther comrade Oscar Duarte, scheduled to be back in uniform at the end of the month. The lesson learned by Dylan: if you are going to lead the race, make sure you follow close enough behind the guy on the bike so you know where to go! Our team placement fell a couple of slots short of expectations, but our 10th of 19 was just 8 measly points out of 7th. Had it been total team time scoring, we would have been 5th! Our average time of 17:40 eclipsed last year's state meet performance by 7 seconds per runner; we are now a better team than we were last year at the end of the season. Also, has Washougal ever had 3 runners under 18 minutes? I am not sure we have before today.

 

Our Future Varsity girls had much to be proud of. In her first race, Freshman Brooke Croeni found a way to lead her teammates with an upper half finish in 26:46.3. Senior Chloe Kilgore looked like she was going to steal the limelight by busting out a 9 second lead over her teammates the first mile. However, she found challenge of maintaining a true racing pace on the last mile, when Brooke and racing partner Sophomore Kaitlyn Johnson skated passed her. Kaitlyn found the only P.R. of the day for the girls, but it was a dandy. Her first time under 27 minutes (26:53.5) was a 23 second improvement over her best last year.

 

Improvements were squeezed out of two of our Future Varsity Boys. Our highly decorated "Mud Warrior" Junior Danny Riat chopped of another 17 seconds off of last week's huge P.R. with a 20:24.9 time. A season's best of 20:22.2 by Senior Michael Huck was the fastest time on this squad today. He finished 49th; he must like this number because that is the exact place he received last week!

 

Next week, we will battle the sand and the mosquitoes at Cottonwood Beach as we host RA Long and Woodland on Thursday.

 

Coach Terry L. Howard

 

Here are the line scores:

 

Varsity Boys

 

Mile 1

Mile 2

5000 M

 

Dylan

1st

5:06

10:17

15:53.2

 

Sean

9th

5:14

10:43

16:34.2

P.R. 

Isaac

48th

5:34

11:24

17:56.4

P.R.

Noah

87th

5:43

11:57 

18:46.1

P.R.

Brendan

107th

5:55

12:18

19:11.5

 

Josh

109th

5:50

12:10

19:12.8

 

Mac

111th

5:55?

12:20?

19:15.0

P.R. 

Nick

114th

5:55?

12:20?

19:20.7

P.R. 

of 144

 

Future Varsity Boys

 

 

 

Michael

49th

6:49

13:16

20:22.2

S.B.

Danny

52nd

6:49

13:16

20:24.9

P.R. 

Darian

93rd

6:52

13:47

21:13.8

 

Drew

110th

6:55

14:12

21:36.6

 

Ryan

158th

6:57

14:35

22:44.4

 

 

of 213

 

 

 

 

Varsity Girls

 

 

 

 

 

Kendall

32nd

6:42

13:53

21:41.4

S.B.

Taneal

88th

7:29

15:21

23:47.5

 

Tara

89th

7:29

15:21

23:48.6

 

Brandi

121st

7:48

16:21

25:37.5

 

Kelsey

127th

7:48

16:31

27:45.7

 

Sydney

128th

7:48

16:31

27:46.6

 

 

of 128

 

 

 

 

Future Varsity Girls

 

 

 

 

Brooke

91st

8:30

17:34

26:46.3

 

Kaitlyn

99th

8:30

17:34

26:53.5

P.R.

Chloe

115th

8:21

17:16

27:43.4

 

Kari

124th

8:33

18:10

27:55.6

 

Laycee

129th

8:33

18:10

28:10.8

 

 

of 183