The "Run-Down": George Fox XC Classic (Willamette Mission State Park)

 

The best way to describe it was that “today was Personal Record day!” After racing on mostly black courses all year long, we finally stepped on the Willamette Mission State Park course that is about as flat and fast as it can get, and still be of legitimate distance. 19 of our 21 guys ran P.R.’s. The only two that did not were sophomore Jackson Keyser, who was limping around the course from an injury, and freshman Jonathan Wells, who missed by less than 2 seconds with respect to his fabulous race at Nike PDX. On the girls side of things, we had almost as much success as we posted seven lifetime bests out of 10 opportunities.

 

The future varsity girls got things rolling for the Panthers. Junior Annabelle Palmer stepped onto a race course for the first time in weeks. We were not sure what to expect as the start of the season was a bit rocky (not one of our season theme concepts) but she had been looking like her true self in workouts the prior two weeks. Well, the latter indicator appeared to be the best as she just missed her P.R. from last year by a mere 2 seconds, placing 3rd in the race of 80. She definitely made the statement that she was more than ready to fill her own shoes at the varsity level. Classmate Olivia Dayley basically equaled her second fastest time ever at 24:45.7. This performance was exciting as she had a late start this season and is just now getting into the groove of things. The only Panther P.R. in this race was the biggest one from the girls; sophomore Denise Lara shaved another 1:15 off of her best even after last week’s improvement of over 1 and half minutes. Her improvement today earned her the Jamba Juice reward that she was granted on the way home.

 

Due to the depth of our boys team, the future varsity boys race had much more substance for the Panthers. Junior Warren Henderson and sophomore Caden Lowman moved past two Marist runners right near the 2 mile mark to move into 3rd and 4th place – behind two more Marist runners. The gap up to them was too much, so our two Panther runners were part of a double decker sandwich with a pair of slices of Marist bread on each side. Junior Andrew McElhaney finished 9th to put 3 Panthers in the top ten, which gave them a comfortable 2nd place team finish. Big P.R.’s came from freshmen Sam Lewis (63 sec.), Ethan Mills (58) and Ted West (94), sophomores Carson Dayley (55), Hayden Stinchfield (59), Caden Lowman (47), and Brett (47) and Derek Lawton (63). Oh, I failed to mention that senior Quinn Austin also ran a P.R., which was by 3:48 seconds, quite possibly the largest P.R. for a Panther near the end of the season - at least in the last decade. You guessed it – he was Runner of the Week!

 

In the varsity girls race, junior Amelia Pullen actually had some competition, well, for about a mile. From the second loop on, it was all Amelia, racking up another easy win, this time by 45 seconds over a pair of North Salem girls. Her time of 18:28.9 lowered her school record. That was no surprise, but freshman Meryl Keeler’s performance was! She blasted a 1:10 P.R. to break another record – the freshman class record, finishing 15th in 20:11.7.  Junior Brooklyn Bausch tossed in a 17 second P.R., which was enough to make her smile, while sophomore Kaylee Timmons hit the jackpot with a 42 second P.R. and classmate Morgan Stinchfield narrowly bested her previous best by a second. One more P.R. came from senior Alexis Maniscalco by just a few seconds, even though she had a “close encounter of the grassy kind” as she fell on the third loop. The girls placed 8th of the 15 complete teams in the middle division, a solid place to be for a school of our size.

 

In this meet, the varsity boys raced last.  With our strongest competitor from our league (Ridgefield) and the up-and-coming RA Long Lumberjacks in our race, most of the top ten individual contenders were from our league. Although we felt like we were the favorites coming into the race, our B+/A- game was not as good as Ridgefield’s A+ game, as they ran exceptionally well, placing three in the top seven. Junior Gabriel Dinnel was battling it out with fellow junior Trevor Cross from Dallas, Oregon at the halfway point, but only cruised to second place. However, he did break 16:00 for the first time in his life.  Classmate Troy Prince-Butterfield ran a sizable P.R., capturing 9th place in 16:31.5. He accomplished this the easy way for an 800 meter runner; his negative splits were 5:22, 5:20, 5:20 and a kick in 29.5 for the last 185 meters. Juniors Ian Palmer and Koy Chaston produced P.R.’s of 13 and 3 seconds as our lone senior in the race, Tanner Lees, was 10 seconds better than his P.R. from last year. The team score left us dangling a full 17 points behind the Spudders, as they won most of the close races within the race. They have thrown down the gauntlet, and now the Panthers must respond.

 

Our next meet is the All-League Championship race, back at Lake Sacajawea in Longview on Thursday.

 

Coach Terry L. Howard

 

Here are the line scores:

 

Varsity Boys

 

1 Mile

2 Miles

3 Miles

5000 M

 

 Gabriel

2nd

4:59

10:10

15:26

15:56.1

 P.R.

 Troy

9th

5:22

10:42

16:02

16:31.5

 P.R.

 Ian

30th

5:31

11:12

16:42

17:14.6

 P.R.

 Jonathan

31st

5:31

11:05

16:43

17:17.7

 

 Tanner

37th

5:32

11:06

16:52

17:29.9

 P.R.

 Koy

42nd

5:33

11:13

 

17:36.2

 P.R.

 Jackson

75th

11:31

17:39

18:14.8

 

 

of 123

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Future Varsity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Warren

3rd

5:38

11:22

17:11

17:44.1

 P.R.

 Caden

4th

5:39

11:23

17:12

17:46.4

 P.R.

 Andrew

9th

5:47

11:46

17:46

18:20.3

 P.R.

 Sam

15th

5:55

11:59

18:03

18:39.1

 P.R.

 Ethan

16rd

12:14

18:14

18:47.1

 P.R.

 Ted

26th

6:02

12:03

18:23

19:00.1

 P.R.

 Derek

41st

6:08

12:33

19:04

19:33.4

 P.R.

 Hayden

44th

6:09

12:34

19:01

19:35.9

 P.R.

 Sage

77th

6:27

13:03

19:37

20:15.8

 P.R.

 Scott

104th

6:45

13:32 

 20:31

21:06.6

 P.R.

 Maddox

125th

6:50

14:12

21:37

22:19.1

 P.R.

 Brett

134th

7:03

14:42

22:20

22:55.7

 P.R.

 Carson

138th

7:19

15:00

22:40

23:17.0

 P.R.

 Quinn

139th

7:11

14:53

22:39

23:19.6

 P.R.

 

of 163

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Varsity Girls

 

 

 

 

 

 Amelia

1st

5:48

11:50

17:52

18:28.9

 Sch. Rec.

 Meryl

15th

6:13

12:52

19:31

20:11.7 

 P.R.

 Brooklyn

49st

6:37

13:38

20:48

21:28.4

 P.R.

 Morgan

66th

6:44

14:02

21:16

21:57.6

 P.R.

 Alexis

72nd

6:33

13:56

21:46

22:28.8

 P.R.

 Bekah

73rd

6:46

14:12

21:49

22:30.8

 

 Kaylee

75th

6:55

14:24

21:55

22:39.4

 P.R.

 

of 104

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Future Varsity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Annabelle

3rd

6:37

13:48

21:03

21:48.4

 

 Olivia

23rd

7:58

16:14

24:04

24:45.7

 

 Denise

54th

8:22

17:05

25:26

26:11.7

 P.R.

 

 of 80