The "Run-Down": Hockinson @ Home
On a day that most of our runners held back due to our focus on Saturday's Puma Classic at Concordia, PR's and fast times on our slow course were not expect. However, a few Panthers "found a way" to over-achieve and bring some big smiles to the faces of the coaching staff. Saturday's event will be amazing, but what we saw today (considering the effort) provided some great foreshadowing of what is to come.
For the third time in as many weeks, our girls lined up against the best in the district, Hockinson. 14 days earlier, the Hawks posted a comfortable 20-40 win. This week, with most of our girls only running at 90%, the Panthers made it closer by gaining 4 points! Sophomore Kalli Light dropped more time off her best with grace and ease. Today, her new PR of 25:59 was good enough for 9th place. Other Sophomore Tara Duey cut 19 seconds off her previous time from 4 weeks ago, and made it look easy. She is due for an awesome race on Saturday. Another Sophomore "found a way" to tough out the pain on a lower leg injury: Sydney Niemi powered her way to a 27:33, nearly 3 minutes faster than what she ran on our course last year! Yet another Sophomore improved 3:05 from her career debut: Devyn Reuter broke 30 minutes posting a 29:19! Not a bad improvement in just 2 weeks. Senior Laycee Hyde shaved off nearly a minute from our other home meet in September (she had the green light to run 100%), while Freshman Darby MacKenzie "found a way" to finish in style and smile afterwards. She captured a 46 second PR. Sophomore learned valuable lessons in her first race, the most prominent one was to avoid the "Dorito Effect" regarding pre-race snacks.
While most of the girls mentioned above competed at 90%, a good portion of them "gave" Junior Captain Kendall Utter their spare 10%. Therefore, Kendall was empowered with about 170-180% of Panther effort and it showed. Her spectacular performance of 22:15 was just 21 seconds shy of Hockinson star Chantalle Blundell, someone who beat her by nearly 2 minutes 2 weeks ago! This effort put Kendall a few steps closer to reaching her awesome goals this season.
For the Panther guys, Co-captains Senior Dylan Croeni and Sophomore Sean Eustis skated away from Hockinson's 1st competitor to go 1-2 (times were immaterial for them), as they spent most of the race supporting Freshman Mac Wright going all out (19:32) and run 31 seconds faster than previously on this course. Congratulation for being the first freshman across the line! Junior Ryan Strecker posted a decent time of 23:50, sprinting to the finish line then straight to the watermelon cooler! Senior Michael Huck matched his time at home 4 weeks ago to the second (20:51), but the best performance from a Panther guy today had to be by Sophomore Darian Tierney: 20:52, 39 seconds faster on our course and a PR on any course by 12 seconds! When the race was over and the scores were tallied, we walked away with a 20-38 victory.
Coach Terry L. Howard
Here are the line scores:
|
Varsity Boys |
|
5000 M |
|
|
Dylan |
1st |
19:06 |
|
|
Sean |
2nd |
19:16 |
|
|
Mac |
4th |
19:19 |
P.R. - Black |
|
Josh |
6th |
20:03 |
|
|
Oscar |
7th |
20:05 |
|
|
Noah |
8th |
20:06 |
|
|
Isaac |
9th |
20:08 |
|
|
Michael |
14th |
20:51 |
|
|
Darian |
15th |
20:52 |
P.R. - Any |
|
Danny |
18th |
22:01 |
|
|
Drew |
20th |
23:09 |
|
|
Ryan |
22nd |
23:50 |
|
|
|
of 26 |
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|
|
Varsity Girls |
|
|
|
|
Kendall |
3rd |
22:15 |
|
|
Tara |
6th |
24:21 |
P.R. - Black |
|
Taneal |
7th |
25:16 |
|
|
Kalli |
9th |
25:59 |
P.R. - Any |
|
Brandi |
11th |
26:04 |
|
|
Sydney |
15th |
27:33 |
P.R. - Black |
|
Chloe |
17th |
27:42 |
|
|
Brooke |
18th |
28:07 |
|
|
Kari |
19th |
28:08 |
|
|
Kaitlyn |
20th |
28:11 |
|
|
Laycee |
21st |
28:27 |
|
|
Devyn |
22nd |
29:19 |
P.R. - Black |
|
Kelsey |
23rd |
29:22 |
|
|
Serene |
24th |
29:45 |
|
|
Darby |
25th |
30:34 |
|
|
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of 25 |
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