The "Run-Down": Ridgefield

 

High anticipation! Emotional let-down? That is what it felt like this week as we viewed what was heralded to be our league's high school dual meet of the year: Washougal vs. Ridgefield. Both for the boys and the girls.

 

Based on the results from the Nike Portland meet, both the boys and the girls races should have been within a few points. Shortly after, we found out that Ridgefield was not going to "Race" full strength at us as they were scheduled for another big invite a few days later. We were ready for their best, but when we found out that is not what we were going to "run up against," it took some of the wind out of our sails.

 

So, we won, but we did not run our best. Some fast guy name Silas won the race handily, but no other Spudders challenged our top three for the guys. With two of the top three girls from Ridgefield cheering from the sidelines, Panthers captured 4 of the top 6 places to secure a win. Sophomore Amelia Pullen won the second race of her life (in as many weeks), but the best bright spot came from Junior Bekah Shilling as she re-established her 5th position on the team, reducing the gap behind Sophomore Annabelle Palmer to exactly one minute. Due to our deflated emotional state, even the "Black Course" PR's were hard to come by. It looks like the only one on the whole team came from the senior boy Ryan Spencer as he show more athletic maturity out on the course than ever before. Newcomer senior girl Maral Atto deserves congratulations as she complete her first 5K!

 

There was a bit more excitement in the Middle School race that preceded the HS races. Eighth grader Jonathan Wells, fresh off of his amazing time at Nike, crushed the course and the competition with a huge 30 second win over the Hockinson kids. Classmates Sage Morris and Kolby Lowe along with seventh graders Will Gunn and Gavin Keyser turned in noteworthy performances, but the brightest boy spot came from newcomer seventh grader Trenton Hamilton as he improved 15 seconds over his time from our course the week before.

 

For the girls, who ran with the boys this race, standard races from eighth graders Gabby Warta and Meryl Keeler ensured a close win for the girls, but the performance of the day came from improvement queen seventh grader Tanalee Newton with a THREE MINUTE PR! That was more than enough to secure her as recipient of this week's Runnerette of the Week.

  

Next week, we race at home one more time as we host Woodland, Hockinson and out of league competitors Columbia, AKA White Salmon.

 

Coach Terry L. Howard

 

Here are the line scores:

 

Boys

 

5000 M

 

 Gabriel

2nd

18:01

 Aiden

3rd

18:24

 Troy

4th

18:32

 Koy

7th

18:55

 Tanner L

9th

19:19

 Tanner C

10th

19:33

 Jackson

12th

19:37

 Ian

13th

19:44

 Warren

17th

20:33

 Andrew

21st

20:44

 Dallin

28th

22:18

 Trent

29th

22:27

 Jacob

30th

22:32

 Michael

31st

22:44

 Derek

34th

24:14

 Hayden

36th

24:20

 Ryan

40th

25:26

P.R. Black

 Brett

43rd

26:03

 Scott

44th

26:05

 Spencer

46th

31:23

 

 of 47

 

Girls

 

 

 Amelia

1st

21:42

 Hannah

2nd

22:17

 Brooklyn

4rd

23:36

 Annabelle

6th

24:10

 Bekah

8th

25:10

P.R. Black

 Hallie

11th

25:37

 Kaylee

14th

26:09

 Olivia

15th

27:45

 Tess

17th

29:12

 Abby

21st

32:58

 Maral

22nd

36:04

of 23