The "Run-Down": Concordia

 

The biggest meet we go to each year, and we saw a little bit of everything. Cool and cloudy; warm and sunny. Silly fun with cheer sticks; serious racing with XC spikes. Distorted race strategies; perfectly executed ran plans. Performances that fell short of expectations; races of a lifetime! For the Panthers, the good did outweigh the bad as we had some landmark performances and learned some lessons that will prepare us for the future.

 

The first race included our future varsity girls where sophomore Kelsey Lagerquist bolted out in the top third of a vast sea of runners. She cruised through the first mile in 7:25, but then was slowed down by stomach cramps and fellow sophomore Megan Anderson gradually made up ground and had a slight lead on her at the 3 mile mark. But Kelsey's patented finishing kick prevailed as they ran 24:31 and 24:34, a season best for Kelsey and a PR for Megan. Both earned the honor of moving up to Varsity for the League meet next week. Two other sophomores ran PR's in this race: Sydney Hickey (26:00) and Serene Dunn (26:09). The rest of the clan managed season bests: sophomore Brooke Croeni (25:36), senior Katie Ladwig (26:12), junior Kaitlyn Johnson (26:17) and junior Kari Johnson (26:23). The Panthers squeezed out 8th place (16 complete teams and at least 11 incomplete teams) by one point over Centennial, and just 8 points behind Union.

 

Due to the classification differences between the boys and the girls, there was a one hour gap until our future varsity guy's race. It what is mostly like the larges race I have ever had runners compete in, ), freshman Rusty Shiluk was the lone Panther to post a PR as 409 other finisher surrounded him, 98 ahead of him and 310 behind. His new PR is 19:03. Junior Darian Tierney (19:12) just missed a new PR by mere seconds, and sophomore Dakota Krecklow pulled out of his slump and was close to his PR while running 21:47.

 

The varsity girls were the first Panthers to sport the new XCiting varsity only uniforms that arrive exactly 24 hours earlier. Seniors Kayla Lockard and Kendall Utter moved out fairly quickly within the pack of nearly 200. Although Kayla was the first Panther across the line, her time of just over 22 minutes was a major point of frustration as she was caught off guard at the finish, thinking she had another lap to go. However, her 22:05 now stands as a Senior class record. Kendall made up some ground over last week's race finishing in 22:18. First year sophomore Hannah Wright ran her perfectly executed first mile pacing junior Kalli Light as instructed in pre-race council, then kept passing girls left and right, including Kendall on the finishing kick, surpassing coaches' expectations... just what the team needs as it seeks to improve in order to capture a state berth in two weeks. Hannah's 22:11 was a 40 second PR over her South Salem race.

With the new uniform, it is hard to lose sight of our Panthers, but somehow junior Isaac Stinchfield managed to sneak past coach at 500 meters unnoticed and fellow classmate and Sean Eustis "could not find him" the first 800. But after they merged at about the 1 mile mark, the two worked together and moved up from the upper teens in placement to 10th and 11th with 1200 meters to go. All but one of the lead pack of 5 faded back to the next group, within distance of a Seans' intense last 400 meters, where he moved into 6th, just 4 seconds from second place. Isaac did a fabulous job of holding his own and wrapped up the race in 13th place. Their times of 15:40 and 15:50 are the 3rd and 5th fastest efforts ever for Panthers (Class of 2011's Dylan Croeni has the other 3 in the top 5). They now rank 3rd and 6th in the 2A state Athletic.net standings. Another significant PR came from Junior Geer McGee. Although he adamantly complained about the pushing and shoving throughout the race, his PR was lowered by 31 seconds to 17:50. Senior Noah Collins virtually tied his PR from 52 weeks earlier on the same course. Thanks to less than twenty points from Sean and Isaac, the Panther boys move up from last year's placing up to 26th of 36 teams in the elite race. Job well done!

This next week we move one step closer to our goal of running the race of our lives at the District Meet in two weeks. This season's final tune up will be Thursday at our All League meet at Hockinson Meadows.

 

Coach Terry L. Howard

 

Here are the line scores:

 

Boys

 

Mile 1

Mile 2

Mile 3

5000 M

 

Sean

6th

4:58

10:06

15:10

15:40

PR

Isaac

13th

4:58

10:05

15:21

15:50

PR

Geer

181st

5:38

11:26

17:19

17:50

PR

Noah

211th

5:40

11:42

17:45

18:15

 

Nicolas

230th

5:44

11:47

17:58

18:30

 

 

of 249

 

 

 

 

 

Rusty

99th

6:05

12:24

18:30

19:03

PR

Darian

118th

5:55

12:16

18:37

19:12

 

Blake

185th

6:09

12:40

19:17

19:53

 

Jacob B

288th

6:43

13:40

20:35

21:13

 

Dakota

327th

7:10

14:11

21:14

21:47

 

Jacob S

366th

6:52

14:19

22:21

22:55

 

Aaron

384th

7:12

15:13

23:16

23:55

 

 

of 410

 

 

 

 

 

Girls

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kayla

83rd

6:51

13:58

21:24

22:05

PR

Hannah

90th

7:06

14:25

21:39

22:12

PR

Kendall

96th

6:51

14:12

21:40

22:18

 

Kalli

149th

7:10

15:02

22:49

23:27

 

Karina

153rd

6:58

14:45

22:53

23:32

 

 

of 193

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kelsey

37th

7:28

15:35

23:52

24:31

 

Megan

39th

7:48

15:53

23:51

24:34

PR

Brooke

65th

7:50

16:37

24:58

25:36

 

Sydney H

76th

8:02

16:31

25:19

26:00

PR

Serene

79th

8:02

16:40

25:27

26:09

PR

Katie

82nd

8:08

16:53

25:33

26:12

 

Kaitlyn

85th

8:14

16:58

25:42

26:17

 

Kari

89th

8:15

16:59

25:44

26:23

 

 

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