The "Run-Down": Ridgefield and RA Long @ RA Long
Slight overcast. Temperature in the low seventies. A scenic park in the middle of a small town with a lake in it. It doesn't get much better than that. Conditions were excellent for our opening league race against Ridgefield and host RA Long.
50 minutes after we jumped off the bus, the girls jumped on the start line, unfortunately without Sophomore Lydia Lyall, AKA "Goofy", as she was protecting her hampered knee. With her, we knew it could be real close against Ridgefield girls, favorites to win the league title. Without her, we fell a bit more than a handful of points short, but had the following highlights: We had valiant efforts from Sophomore Courtney Owens in 3rd place and Sophomore Hannah Lintala in 5th, nearly matching last weeks' times on the slightly short HRV course. Junior Meredith Collins managed to start her normal early season progression, chopping off about 18 seconds from last week. Sophomore Abby Lees set a new PR and earned a varsity spot for next week's invitational and racking up Varsity Letter points as our fifth girl. For our two Seniors, Mackenzie Kitchen finished her first race in style and plans to get stronger each week, and Genevieve Ashley found out "she can do this thing called XC". The numbers on the scoreboard gave us a 23 to 34 win against RA Long while losing to Ridgefield 33-22.
The end results were similar for the boys, but the margin of victory was a bit larger over RA Long and the loss to Ridgefield was a meager 3 points. Junior Bailey Duncan returned to his normal display of racing with a 17:39, his fourth fastest time ever. Right behind him in 4th was Sophomore Aiden Pullen in 17:55. Standard races from Senior Nicolas Velardi and Junior Luke Belzer secured the win against the Jacks of RA Long. PRs came from Freshman Jamison Wright and Sophomores Evan Hoff and Alex Flansburg for more Panther highlights.
The Middle School race at the end of the day was the first co-ed one of the year. We finally got to see the girls mix it up with boys. 8th Grader Allison Warta challenged the top guy runners from Ridgefield (the only team of the other two with entries), but the 1-4 sweep of the Panther boys was the first time we produced solid performances from 8th Graders Gabriel Dinnel, Troy Prince-Butterfield and Koy Chaston and 7th Grader Andres Magana in the same race. 8th Graders Amelia Pullen and Annabelle Palmer held there normal position on the girls squad, and looked good doing so. Other MS Panthers that impressively charged the finish line were 7th Graders Serena Morrill-Jenkins, Casey Rappe and Jackson Keyser, plus 8th Graders Ian Palmer and Ben Adams.
We will return to Lake Sacagawea later on this year as that it Mark Morris' home course location as well.
There is no League Meet next week, so the next competition on our schedule is the illustrious Nike Pre-National meet at Portland Meadows. Races will be all throughout the day. MS races: Girls @ 8:30, Boys at 8:55. HS Var Girls at 9:15, Boys @ 10:30. Future Varsity are at various times in the afternoon.
Coach Terry L. Howard
Here are the line scores:
|
Boys |
|
5000 M |
|
Bailey |
3rd |
17:39 |
|
Aiden |
4th |
17:55 |
|
Nicolas |
7th |
18:39 |
|
Luke |
8th |
19:16 |
|
Jamison |
14th |
20:08 |
|
Collin |
16th |
20:14 |
|
Alex |
18th |
20:34 |
|
Tanner |
20th |
20:47 |
|
Evan |
27th |
21:38 |
|
Nicholas |
28th |
21:38 |
|
Gabe |
29th |
21:44 |
|
|
of 44 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Girls |
|
|
|
Courtney |
3rd |
21:09 |
|
Hannah |
5th |
22:03 |
|
Karina |
8th |
23:51 |
|
Meredith |
11th |
24:48 |
|
Abby |
13th |
27:10 |
|
Mackenzie |
14th |
27:11 |
|
Genevieve |
18th |
28:43 |
|
Jeannine |
20th |
29:53 |
|
|
of 22 |
|