Rarely has any XC runner won consecutive 'Runner of the Week' awards - never at WHS. But Jackson Keyser seriously deserves such an honor. Last week he ran a 'good' race on his comeback trail from surgery. However, he was swept by the Columbia River scoring five. At the Warner Pacific meet, Jackson had several of those CR runners in his crosshairs; three were within 10 seconds of him and they were not pressing that hard. This week, he edged out the fastest of the three by less than a second. Jackson confessed that his ultimate motivation for racing so well was his strong desire to break 17 minutes. Unfortunately, the course has a large patch of mud from the inch of rain from the previous day; otherwise we are sure he would have achieved that goal.
Brooklyn Chase decided to join her very close friends on the Eighth Grade XC team this year. She was the 7th runner on the squad - exceptions being when one of the top 5 was out of commission. Then she moved up to #6. She was usually well over a minute behind the 5th runner; she definitely did not earn any accolades of stardom. But you don't have to be a star to be a hero. Teammate Danica Stinchfield was too sick to run at District. Brooklyn and her teammates needed to cover for her to win the meet. So Brooklyn came unglued (in a good way) and became the all-important 5th and final scoring runner. She was less than 45 seconds from the normal 5th runner. By capturing a solid 21st place, she secured an 8 point win for the team, thus being the hero of the day.