The "Run-Down": State Championships
We packed our vans and journeyed to the other side of the Cascades, to the city named Pasco where XC champions are crowned. Our travels ventured through several climate changes, starting with calm, overcast in Pantherville, switching to heavy rains in the first half of the gorge, back to dry (and almost calm) in The Dalles, through intense 50 MPH winds in the tail end of the gorge, then moderately strong tolerable winds in Pasco. The Subway parking lot in The Dalles was where we put the final touches on decorating the vans. Those intense winds created serious waves on the Columbia that rivaled any waves the Killer Dolphins typically generate on the XC course. They also blew tumbleweeds across the roads and through the rest stops, where junior Caden Lowman rescued one of them and compassionately adopted it as our temporary team mascot. We were glad those winds subsided enough such that senior Gabriel Dinnel’s iPhone was save from being blown into the abyss of any Honey Bucket while at Sun Willows Golf Course. Those were the events of Friday.
Saturday was the day of crowning. With the uncertainty of the difficulty of the revised course, we were unsure if P.R.’s were going to be plentiful or rare events. So when our own senior Amelia Pullen decided to be crowned “Queen of the 2A race” in a time of 18:04.5 and winning by 25 seconds, we scratched our heads and debated whether she ran a normal race and her biggest competitor had an off-day, or was it truly a more challenging course than in year’s past and she did something down right phenomenal! Upon examining the times of her teammates and the leaders in the other girl’s races, we concluded that definitely leaned towards being PHENOMENAL, as she ran the 4th fastest time from any classification that day! The enjoyment of the day did not end when Amelia crossed the finish line, but continued when we found out that we narrowly eclipsed the Hawks of Hockinson by 6 points in the team race. I promptly began to blame senior Brooklyn Bausch (100th) as she passed several girls, including a Hawk, as she kicked down the hill the last 150 meters to the finish line. Freshman Savea Mansfield ran her finest race of her life, placing 22nd while being ranked only 31st prior to the gun going off. Sophomore Meryl Keeler (76th) was also on the top of her game as she was the 10th girl from District 4 across the finish line; she was only 16th the week before. Senior Annabelle Palmer (120th) was our final scorer, but a 23 second P.R. from junior Clara Best put her right behind Annabelle to be our sixth runner “safety valve” to give us good odds to break any tie breaker. Freshman Paige Maas (148th) was one of the toughest runners out there as she finished like a house of fire on the downhill finish.
For the second year in a row, the Panther girls were the place behind the Hawks at the League Meet and the District Meet, then turned the tables and were the team ahead of them in Pasco. In doing so, this year we get to proclaim our girls as being the unofficial “District Champions of November.” We crowned the first ever individual Panther State Champion in this race, but we also handed out tiaras to a half a dozen Panther princesses.
What was about to happen in the 2A boys race was epic. There was unheard of support from our adversaries within our league as all knew the Panther boys had an excellent shot at dethroning the Mariners of Sehome, something that had not been done in many years. In fact, the epidemic of even excitement spread around the state as teams from Sehome’s district were keeping a close watch on the Panthers as they were eager to potentially watch history in the making. Gabriel found his in-league companion for the day, Kyle Radosevich, and the two ran side-by-side in the lead comfortably through the first mile. The second mile the two slightly separated from the pack with two Pullman runners and a Cheney kid lying in the weeds a few seconds back. With a half mile to go, Kyle opened up a significant lead while Eliason Kabasenche from Pullman moved to second. Eliason overtook Kyle during the last 400 meters for the win, while Gabriel held off a couple of pursuers as they approached the last hill, blowing them away by 50 meters during the last 400, posting a time of less than a second from breaking 16 minutes. Senior Ian Palmer (21st) continued to improve each meet and ran 16:40 on this challenging course, which gave him the bragging rights of being the 5th runner from our District across the line, narrowly missing the two Black Hills runners by less than 3 seconds. Junior Jackson Keyser (34th) bounced back nicely from a disappointing 17th place at District to be the 8th from that group to finish today. Sophomore Jonathan Wells (40th) was the top sophomore from our District and was the 4th sophomore in the race. Senior Troy Prince-Butterfield (51st), hampered by a knee injury for weeks, was restricted to his recent racing plan of “run with a pack of guys and out kick them at the end.” He managed to pass 10 opponents in the last mile, but that was not enough as the Panthers missed Sehome by 14 points. Mariners’ coach Kevin Ryan admitted he had two huge positive surprises that day, and that was enough to keep their crown as they had to run their best race of the season to top us. Senior Koy Chaston (85th) ran far from his best race of the season, but it was still good enough for the Panthers to boast that they still would have beaten all other teams had Gabriel not run in the race – now that is “Team Depth!” Junior Caden Lowman (109th) wrapped up his season beating all but two 7th runners from other schools (Sehome’s 7th was just nine places in from of him while Selah’s 7th beat him by 3 steps).
The Panthers had to deal with the bitter/sweet of being the best team ever in our school’s history, our 2A league’s history in addition to the 2A Southwestern Washington District IV’s history, and falling short of legendary status of being the team to dethrone Sehome. The Mariners walked away with their well-deserved 7th consecutive State Meet Title while we walked away knowing that we gave them a run for their money as well as inciting incredible excitement within our town and within our XC league as we demonstrated that the “Impossible” was within arm’s length.
As we improve year after year, the combined team scores were as follows: Sehome 262, Pullman 286, Liberty 296, WASHOUGAL 307, Ellensburg 324, Ridgefield 469, Port Angeles 580, Tumwater 629, North Kitsap 658, White River 737. As excitement is growing in Pantherville and the system is improving and expanding, we feel it may not be too long before we undercut the three teams ahead of us!
Panther XC - FOREVER!
Coach Terry L. Howard
Here are the line scores:
|
Boys |
|
Mile 1 |
Mile 2 |
5000 M |
|
|
Gabriel |
3rd |
5:03.2 |
10:14.4 |
16:00.9 |
|
|
Ian |
21st |
5:07.6 |
10:39.1 |
16:40.0 |
|
|
Jackson |
34th |
5:13.5 |
10:51.1 |
17:00.0 |
|
|
Jonathan |
40th |
5:13.5 |
10:51.4 |
17:07.6 |
|
|
Troy |
51st |
5:14.4 |
10:59.9 |
17:13.4 |
|
|
Koy |
85th |
5:17.0 |
11:00.1 |
17:35.0 |
|
|
Caden |
109th |
5:20.0 |
11:18.6 |
17:55.6 |
|
|
|
of 165 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Girls |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Amelia |
1st |
5:41.5 |
11:31.6 |
18:04.5 |
P.R.–School Record |
|
Savea |
22nd |
6:10.3 |
12:49.2 |
20:07.0 |
|
|
Meryl |
76th |
6:43.2 |
13:51.8 |
21:42.0 |
|
|
Brooklyn |
100th |
6:51.7 |
14:02.5 |
22:09.5 |
|
|
Annabelle |
120th |
6:56.1 |
14:23.5 |
22:45.9 |
|
|
Clara |
121st |
7:06.1 |
14:42.5 |
22:47.0 |
P.R. |
|
Paige |
148th |
7:06.2 |
---------- |
23:59.3 |
|
|
|
of 162 |
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