The "Run-Down": State Meet @ Sun Willows Golf Course (Pasco)

"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year." Ralph Waldo Emerson. That was our quote for the day, well more so our quote for the weekend. As there were a few on our team that actually had a "bad" race at District, we left those behind in the trash cans as we departed the WHS parking lot on Friday morning. For those that had good or great races at District, they were commissioned to do even better in Pasco.

We were actually a few minutes ahead of schedule until we hit the golf course when a majority of the Panthers jumped into the T-shirt/Sweatshirt line that was slower than molasses. While the athletes were moving about 2 centimeters per second to spend mega-bucks on State Meet apparel, the coaching staff rounded up our race numbers and lane assignments; the race numbers were hard to keep track of (when they were left at the race course with the tent almost overnight) and we found out the official that assigned lanes for the girls race is not a spelling bee contender (the misspelling of our school "Washaugal" was a dead give-away). There were other serious problems with the girl's lane assignments on top of that faux pas. The official in charge of that is sure to receive one of our special recognition awards at our banquet if we can figure out who it was.

At Friday night's dinner, we uncovered Junior Bekah Shilling's hidden talent; she is off the charts when it comes to chicken chopping skills! Her entertainment value made up for the mismanagement of the hotel keys for herself and her roommates.

The lowest point of Friday was sophomore Brooklyn Bausch's health as she had been battling illness the previous few days. Behind that, it was obvious that several of the boys were a bit tired and put in a request for some extra snooze time. So a high priority was to rewrite the next morning's itinerary as to implement undoing Daylight Savings Time a day early for the boys to get them an extra hour of "beauty sleep."

Now, what do you do when the top three runners on the team wake up sick the morning of the State Meet? Well, you just remember the quote of the weekend and be determined that it will still be the best day of the year. That is what our girls decided to believe to neutralize the topic at breakfast that Amelia and Hannah woke up sick (they gave Brooklyn the credit). As a team, they had gone through the course the day before to the tune of Ferocious Running and reassured themselves that "winning lasts forever; pain (or sickness) disappears" and "whatever the mind believes it achieves!" And they believed they could still run their best.

A few hours later, they proved that with 4 PR's, 2 near misses by mere seconds and one 20 second Season's Best from our lone senior, Hannah Swigert, resulting in a senior record of 20:16.7 and 41st place. Sophomore Amelia Pullen posted the fastest time of her life and of the season for any girl in our district at 19:45.4, landing in 20th place. The biggest Panther PR of the day (over 15 seconds) came from Bekah as she conquered the hill with 380 meters to go with courageous power. The night before, she chopped chicken! Today she chopped the GBP down to 2.3 seconds! Freshmen Morgan Stinchfield and Kaylee Timmons had PR's of 4.1 and 8.6 seconds. Our super consistent sophomores were off there PR's by only 1.8 seconds (Brooklyn Bausch) and 3.6 seconds (Annabelle Palmer).

Our "high achievement" goal going into the race was to be in the top 10. We did it by just one point, 264 to 265 over Lindbergh! Where was Ridgefield and Tumwater? Behind us! Just as predicted weeks before, when we reduced our GBP to single digits, we could beat any team in our District! Two more PR's would have probably landed us in 9th (White River was just 4 points away). We truly proved that our team was worthy of being in the State Meet and our District is gaining respect! We were the first team in our League's history to have 6 girls under 22 minutes at the state meet! What a great benchmark to set.

The boys had a hard act to follow. Senior Aiden Pullen and his fellow sleepy heads got a few extra Z's overnight to reenergize. Morale was high, and the only significant pre-race concern was freshman Jackson Keyser's ankle, which forced him into a limping mode at the end of the previous day's course run-through. Coach Elle Wade had the assignment of applying the tape job, and her first attempt was not enough to keep him from limping when jogging. We were concerned that he may not be able to finish. Then Coach Elle Wade requested her "mulligan" and the second time around Jackson was much more ready to fly. And fly he did!

Shortly after the first mile, sophomore Koy Chaston, who was only a few steps behind classmate Troy Prince-Butterfield, slowly started to fade as his back complications from a few weeks prior had returned. Jackson's second fastest time of his life (17:45) was enough to cover for Koy's misfortune to be our solid 5th runner to secure a respectable score. Junior Tanner Lees was the closest to running a PR (2.6 seconds) as he apparently had mostly recovered from the spider bite that messed with his legs last week. His fellow junior "Tanner Twin" (Coltrane) had a "so-so" day that placed him high enough to keep us in the top ten team scoring had Jackson fallen off the pace. In the front of our pack of Panthers, Troy ran the finest race of his life (just 4 seconds off his PR from the easier Lake Sacajawea course) just missing the big goal of top 50 by 5 places. Our dynamic duo up front was right on course (and on time) through the first 2000 meters, as they had both moved into the top 20. Aiden kept moving up and was momentarily in the top 10 prior to the 2 mile mark, but slipped back to 13th. This was still high enough to get that magical medal he had been dreaming about for years. Sophomore Gabriel Dinnel was threatening to also break into that top 16 medal pack, but slipped back a couple places instead of forward, ending up in 19th.

So what were the team scores? Our performance was short of ideal, but still quite good. We did prove to the rest of the state that the Panther XC boys were a trophy contender, but contender was as far as we got as we were not a trophy earner. Our ranking was 8th of the 16 teams, but just 30 points away from the coveted 4th place trophy that seemed within reach.

Remember our quote for the weekend? Well, we did do that, we had the best day of the year. We performed better than at any time during the rest of the season. On top of that, we had the best Panther XC day in 30 years, the last time both teams placed in the top 10 at the State Meet!

Coach Terry L. Howard

Here are the line scores:

Varsity Boys		1 Mile	2 Miles	5000 M
Aiden	13^th	5:05	10:28	16:27.1
Gabriel	19^th	5:05	10:31	16:30.8
Troy	55^th	5:23	11:01	17:13.0
Tanner L	95^th	5:30	11:20	17:42.6
Jackson	99^th	5:30	11:34	17:45.0
Tanner C	123^rd	5:35	11:48	18:08.9
Koy	153^rd	5:30		19:22.7
	of 157
Varsity Girls
Amelia	20^th	6:07		19:45.4	P.R.
Hannah	41^st	6:16		20:16.7
Brooklyn	100^th	6:39		21:46.8
Annabelle	103^rd	6:40		21:49.6
Bekah	106^th	6:41		21:51.9	P.R.
Morgan	112^th	6:52		21:58.9	P.R.
Kaylee	141^st	7:18		23:21.4	P.R.
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