The "Run-Down": Champoeg Invitational
Thanks to our teacher strike early on in the season, what was supposed to be teacher in-service day was actually a day for the classroom (exception being our running start athletes). So our early afternoon race at the Champoeg Invitational forced us to get kids out of most of the school day to race – I didn’t hear too much complaining about that logistical aspect of this race in the Newberg area.
With junior Kaylee Timmons still on the injured reserve list and Homecoming stealing away senior Jenna Beaver, we were down to three gals in the Future Varsity race for girls. Senior Hallie Morris (23:42.2) held off the rib cage pain she had been plagued with for most of the season to run an excellent race, missing her P.R. by less than a second. This brought a huge smile to her face that she proudly wore on the bus ride all the way home. Classmate Olivia Dayley ran one of her finer races crossing the finish line in 24:03.6. Sophomore Ana Ferriero (25:59.5) not only battled the other 145 runners to cross the finish line under 26 minutes, but she also encountered a battle with some blackberry bushes that left some battle wounds on her face. But her gleaming smile the next few days resulting from her performance seemed to last much longer than the scratches.
Due to the significant increase of teams for this race, the meet officials needed to split the Future Varsity boys into two competitions. The first of the two races was the scoring competition that included 153 of the better runners from each of the 20+ schools. With the narrow trails located in the first mile, they should have put up “Congestion” traffic signs just after the bridge crossing. Despite being closer to the middle of the pack than the leaders, seniors Andrew McElhaney (8th) and Warren Henderson (10th) moved up into ribbon earning position after they hit the long stretch of paved road. We had season best times from senior Jeffrey Wells (18:34.8) and sophomore Donovan Bailey (19:07.5) as they were key 4th and 5th runners on the team. Our score of 82 points was good enough for 3rd place (just 10 points behind The Dalles) while what should have been the largest school in attendance, Aloha, dominated the competition with all five of their scorers in the top 15.
As congestion was the major issue in most races, senior Amelia Pullen was immune to that factor as she took an early lead on this course. Somewhere in the second half of the race, two girls caught up to and challenged her. One of them tripped up Amelia as they were closing in on the final stretch. She did fall but managed to recover quickly as to still run a P.R. (18:19.5), which of course is our new school record. Other highlights of the race included senior Brooklyn Bausch’s (21:42.5) best time of the season and second fastest time of her life, junior Clara Best (23:42.2) chopping off over 30 seconds of her P.R., along with freshman Paige Maas kicking past runners to post a new P.R. of 23:05.9. The girls placed 11th, right in the middle of the pack as we knew the most competitive team race of the day would be their race.
Heading into the boys race, we were definitely the pre-race favorites. Although Jesuit (one of the top teams in all of Oregon) had a presence at the park, it was their secondary squad, so they were not a serious threat to the Panthers. Senior Gabriel Dinnel spent a good portion of the bus ride zoned out with headphones on; he knew he had a big assignment as he was to “race against himself” as no one was his equal on any of the teams’ roster. He took the lead early and Hood River Valley’s sophomore was brave enough to be within five seconds at the mile mark, but at the end of the race there was nobody within 30 seconds. His time of 15:24.6 not only broke the 31 year old course record, but it finally gave him the top spot in Panther XC history, breaking Dylan Croeni’s record from 2010 of 15:28.62. Senior Troy Prince-Butterfield (14th) passed approximately 25 runners between mile mark 1 and mile mark 3, then another 3 in the last 50 meters as he led an extremely tight pack of 14 runners in an 8 second span, which included our seniors Ian Palmer (18th) and Koy Chaston (24th) along with sophomore Jonathan Wells (22nd). Junior Caden Lowman had the only “non-Gabriel” varsity P.R. of the day running 17:29.1, improving by about 4 seconds. (Gabriel’s P.R. was by 22 seconds.) Although a team score in the 40’s or 50’s was expected, our 72 tallied up to be 7 points better than second place Grant high school – a very large Portland school.
The races finished up with a non-scoring Future Varsity Boys race. Had it been scored, we would have placed third behind two very large schools, Grant and Cleveland. Leading the way in that race for the Panthers was a pair of seniors: Trenton Lowe and Samson Figueroa. They placed sixth and ninth respectively of the 123 runners. Freshman Jacob Strueli (4th Panther across the line) also made a major contribution as he ran nearly a minute faster than he did on our course the previous week. It looks like the best P.R. of the day came from his classmate Fischer Lees as he ran nearly 45 seconds better than he did at Nike two weeks prior.
This race was our unofficial start of the championship season. Our next stop is the League Championships at Vancouver Lake Park next Thursday.
Coach Terry L. Howard
Here are the line scores:
|
Boys |
|
5000 M |
|
|
Gabriel |
1st |
15:24.6 |
School Record!!! |
|
Troy |
14th |
16:51.4 |
|
|
Ian |
18th |
16:52.6 |
|
|
Jonathan |
22nd |
16:54.1 |
|
|
Koy |
24th |
16:56.4 |
|
|
Jackson |
31st |
17:03.2 |
|
|
Caden |
53rd |
17:29.1 |
P.R. |
|
|
of 141 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FV Boys |
|
|
|
|
Andrew |
8th |
18:06.1 |
P.R. |
|
Warren |
10th |
18:19.9 |
|
|
Jeffrey |
16th |
18:34.8 |
P.R. |
|
Sam |
20th |
18:45.7 |
|
|
Donovan |
32nd |
19:07.5 |
|
|
Hayden |
62nd |
19:48.6 |
|
|
Ted |
64th |
19:50.9 |
|
|
Jack |
87th |
20:15.9 |
P.R. |
|
Sage |
107th |
20:40.9 |
|
|
Gavin |
111th |
20:51.1 |
|
|
Ethan |
129th |
21:30 |
|
|
|
of 153 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FV Boys Non-Scoring |
|
|
|
|
Trenton |
6th |
20:40.9 |
P.R. |
|
Samson |
9th |
20:51.1 |
P.R. |
|
Derek |
29th |
21:30 |
|
|
Jacob |
30th |
20:40.9 |
P.R. |
|
Hayden B |
31st |
20:51.1 |
|
|
Scott |
37th |
21:30 |
|
|
Fischer |
50th |
20:40.9 |
P.R. |
|
Lucas |
51st |
20:51.1 |
P.R. |
|
Blake |
73rd |
21:30 |
|
|
Brett |
78th |
20:40.9 |
|
|
|
of 123 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Varsity Girls |
|
5000 M |
|
|
Amelia |
3rd |
18:19.5 |
School Record!!! |
|
Savea |
31st |
20:48.4 |
|
|
Brooklyn |
59th |
21:42.5 |
|
|
Meryl |
62nd |
21:46.6 |
|
|
Paige |
90th |
23:05.9 |
P.R. |
|
Annabelle |
91st |
23:07.6 |
|
|
Clara |
98th |
23:45.3 |
P.R. |
|
|
of 117 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FV Girls |
|
|
|
|
Hallie |
31st |
23:42.2 |
|
|
Olivia |
37th |
24:03.6 |
|
|
Ana |
89th |
25:59.5 |
P.R. |
|
|
of 146 |
|
|