The "Run-Down": All League Championships
After racing at Lake Sacajawea in Longview the previous few years for our “All League Championship” meet, we had a change of venue to Vancouver Lake Park. The weather was fabulous, and the results for the Panthers were even better.
Even though the sky was clear, our incredible team of MS girls started things off with plenty of orange streaks of lightning crossing the finish line early on in the race. Seventh grader Elle Thomas (9:21.2) claimed the individual title on the 2500 meter course. Behind her was eighth grader Chloe Johnson (9:34.8) doing what she normally does, which is beating all the non-panthers out on the course. However, a contender for the performer of the day was seventh grader Jamie Maas (9:39.6) who was just a dozen steps behind. Eighth grader Sydnee Boothby (10:03.4) finished in a solid fifth place. Another contender for performance of the day materialized from seventh grader Danica Stinchfield (10:26.9) as she was our 5th runner in 6th place. This gave us a blowout victory with just 17 points. There were two more girls that threw their name into the hat regarding the performance of the day. Eighth grader Katie Zillman (10:49.9) got the closest she has all season to cracking the scoring five as she crossed the finish line in 8th place. And seventh grader Alaina Kester (13:35.7) ran her best race by far as the girls team put on an amazing display of quality and quantity.
The boys knew they had a bit more competition to contend with, but eighth grader Trey Keyser (8:49.3) ran away with a 20+ second victory to lead the team to an impressive victory. Seventh grader Samuel Grice (9:16.2) was sandwiched in between two non-Panthers for third place and eighth graders Blake Mattern (9:21.5) and Alex Holden (9:31.9) earned ribbons by finishing 5th and 6th. The race within the race turned out to be “which Panther wants to be the 5th runner” as Vince Dayley (9:57.5) edged out Ben Houston and Bryce Condon by 2 seconds or less to earn that honor. Our boys team ended up beating all other teams combined with a score of 27 (noting that the Monticello boys were extracted from the scoring procedure since their team was incomplete.) This was an amazing way to end the season for our incredible Middle School squad.
Our Future Varsity team was blessed to have junior Kaylee Timmons jump off the injured reserve list and jump into the race. And it was almost like she had not missed a beat. Her time of 23:42.5 was good enough for 7th place and securing a trip to Pasco as an alternate for the Panthers. Junior Clara Best (23:11.4) was the first Panther across the line in third place to declare that she plans to toe the line in Pasco with the six girls that ran varsity later on in the meet. This was the first race all season the Future Varsity squad was complete, and thanks to a P.R. from senior Olivia Dayley (23:45.1) and solid race from sophomore Ana Ferriero (26:17.1), the Panthers made a game of it with the Spudders as we lost a very close race 29-27.
The Future Varsity boys’ performance proved to be the most dominate win of the six races of the day. We threw in an extra surprise the rest of the league did not know about: senior Ronnie White. Ronnie hit his 10th workout the day before to become eligible to race, and race he did. He bolted into the lead near the mile mark, faded to third at 2 and a half miles, recaptured the lead and held it until the last homestretch. Classmate Andrew McElhaney (17:52.4) eclipsed him by 2.3 seconds to earn the individual title. Two more Panthers followed right behind: senior Warren Henderson (17:57.1) and sophomore Sam Lewis (18:12.8). Our last scorer was senior Jeffrey Wells (18:19.0), who raced to a 15 second P.R. and was out done by only one non-Panther, giving us a near perfect score of 16. New P.R.’s were established by the following: one senior in Jack Olson, one sophomore in Donovan Bailey, four freshmen (Jacob Streuli, Hayden Brown, Fischer Lees and Blake Scott) and one junior in Brett Lawton, whose 68 second improvement took the cake (in a positive way)!
Although she was the last Panther to arrive at the scene, senior Amelia Pullen was the first in her race to cross the finish line. As usual, she set a new course record (18:05.6) and this time by about one and a half minutes. Her time also establishes a new School Record. Her individual performance was slightly overshadowed by the team’s effort which scared the Hawks of Hockinson. With 300 meters to go, the Panthers had a 3 to 4 point lead. Even though we slipped to second place by three points, we were super proud of the effort of our girls, especially senior Annabelle Palmer. Knowing she could not match the finishing speed of the girls in her vicinity, she moved up big time throughout the last mile. Her time of 21:55.9 was just over a full minute faster than the previous week at Champoeg. Co-captain and senior Brooklyn Bausch (21:43.7) also had a fine race by nearly matching her time from the week before, and freshman Savea Mansfield (20:09.0) ran her second best race of her life slipping past Columbia River’s star Lucy Ianello in the finishing stretch for 3rd place. Sophomore Meryl Keeler (21:22.3) ferociously executed workouts just days prior, and she was equally determined to run her best race of the season with an 11th place finish. Freshman Paige Maas (22:43.1) cut more than 20 seconds off her P.R. for the second week in a row. This race was the by far the finest performance from the Panther girls in 2018… so far.
So could the boys match such a performance? They were confident that they could. Although senior Gabriel Dinnel was very fatigued from external factors, the rest of the crew was primed and ready for action. Gabriel had an off day and still broke 16 minutes, placing second. And then the better news began. Classmates Troy Prince-Butterfield (4th) and Ian Palmer (5th) battled each other along with Ridgefield’s Ian Abrams in his finest moment, and came up on top. The remaining four Panthers all posted P.R.’s. Not far behind the non-Panther Ian were sophomore Jonathan Wells (7th) and junior Jackson Keyser (8th) to give us a score of 26 – that means we beat all the other teams combined. The success did not stop there as senior Koy Chaston (11th) shaved 5 seconds off his best time ever and junior Caden Lowman (13th) shocked most opponents (but not us) by unleashing a 32 second P.R. For the first time in the school’s history, the league’s history and more than likely the district’s history, a team had all seven runners under 17 minutes on a legitimate course. And it was US! We averaged 16:28 for our scoring five. This is a great place to be as we dive deeper into the championship season. However, we know we must improve in order to reach our potential and qualify for NXR in Boise.
Our next stop on the championship circuit is Lewis River Golf Course next Thursday for the District 4 – 2A Championships. A dozen other teams will line up against the Panthers to see what they are made of.
Coach Terry L. Howard
Here are the line scores:
|
Varsity Boys |
|
5000 M |
|
|
Gabriel |
2nd |
15:50.6 |
|
|
Troy |
4th |
16:34.3 |
|
|
Ian |
5th |
16:34.9 |
|
|
Jonathan |
7th |
16:39.5 |
P.R. |
|
Jackson |
8th |
16:41.0 |
P.R. |
|
Koy |
11th |
16:49.7 |
P.R. |
|
Caden |
13th |
16:57.4 |
P.R. |
|
|
of 50 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FV Boys |
|
|
|
|
Andrew |
1st |
17:52.4 |
P.R. |
|
Ronnie |
2nd |
17:54.7 |
|
|
Warren |
3rd |
17:57.1 |
|
|
Sam |
4th |
18:12.8 |
P.R. |
|
Jeffrey |
6th |
18:19.0 |
P.R. |
|
Donovan |
13th |
18:55.6 |
P.R. |
|
Ted |
14th |
19:02.8 |
|
|
Hayden S |
20th |
19:24.4 |
|
|
Jack |
30th |
20:03.0 |
P.R. |
|
Ethan |
34th |
20:20.4 |
|
|
Sage |
35th |
20:21.2 |
|
|
Jacob |
41st |
20:43.6 |
P.R. |
|
Derek |
43rd |
20:51.2 |
|
|
Hayden B |
48th |
21:04.2 |
P.R. |
|
Trenton |
51st |
21:18.3 |
|
|
Samson |
56th |
21:30.7 |
|
|
Scott |
58th |
21:35.9 |
|
|
Brett |
62nd |
21:47.4 |
P.R. |
|
Fischer |
65th |
22:14.2 |
P.R. |
|
Blake |
73rd |
23:10.9 |
P.R. |
|
|
of 95 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Girls |
|
5000 M |
|
|
Amelia |
1st |
18:05.6 |
School Record!!! |
|
Savea |
3rd |
20:09.0 |
|
|
Meryl |
11th |
21:22.3 |
|
|
Brooklyn |
15th |
21:43.7 |
|
|
Annabelle |
18th |
21:55.9 |
|
|
Paige |
22nd |
22:43.1 |
P.R. |
|
|
of 41 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FV Girls |
|
|
|
|
Clara |
3rd |
23:11.4 |
P.R. |
|
Kaylee |
7th |
23:42.5 |
|
|
Olivia |
8th |
23:45.1 |
P.R. |
|
Hallie |
9th |
23:53.1 |
|
|
Ana |
12th |
26:17.1 |
|
|
Jenna |
14th |
26:55.1 |
P.R. |
|
|
of 26 |
|
|