The "Run-Down": Cottonwood Beach MS Invitational

Sometimes heroes come from unexpected places. By the end of the day, we had three new heroes emerge from our team. It all took place at our own Cottonwood Beach, where we hosted a six team Middle School meet.

Our girls were overwhelming pre-race favorites; our boys were missing our top runner, eighth grader Gavin Keyser who was sidelined due to a concussion. Since the single trophy went to the school with the combined lowest total, we were wondering if the boys had enough fire power without him to take home the hardware. We knew the girls had to win their race by a large margin and the boys just needed to be competitive. We knew we needed at least one hero from the boy’s side to run the race of their life!

The girls took control of the race quickly with eighth grader Abigail Wall pushing the pace at the mile mark with one other girl from Wind River. Seventh graders Sydnee Boothby and Chloe Johnson were also in the top seven or so. However, on the beach loop, Abigail rolled her ankle but courageously finished. She managed just 5th as she was wincing in pain the last third of the race. Sydnee pulled out second place, running two seconds faster than at the Nike meet on Saturday – that is a big accomplishment considering the slowness of our course. Chloe also bested her time from Nike by a couple of seconds as she held on for 6th. Solid races from seventh grader Sparky Warta and eighth grader Paige Maas gave them the last two spots in the top ten, respectively. It was a job well done for our scoring five to be in the top 10 out of 58 runners. The girls did their job by beating the strongest contender La Center by 28 points. That gave our boys some hope!

It was obviously anticipated that seventh grader Blake Mattern would need to lead the way for the Panthers. The individual awards went five deep, and that was the apparent goal for Blake. Although originally awarded 7th place, after the meet it was determined that he was really 5th. That gave the Panthers 2 fewer points, but they did not need them as they initially managed a few point victory on the co-ed score. The victory was achieved thanks to performances from four other seventh graders. Trey Keyser contributed with a typical race for himself while the next three panthers across the line were the heroes! Travis Gibson (22nd), Adan Magana (23rd) and Alex Holden (25th) either bested their time from Nike (a much faster course) or just missed by a few seconds. None of the other 20 boys ahead of them were able to come close to their Nike times. Basically, they all ran equivalent to 15-30 seconds faster than they did just five days before!

The boys scored 92 points, so adding that to the girls’ 32 gave us 124. The major competition came from La Center and they totaled 130, and behind them was Henkle at 170.

Other individual performances worth mentioning came from seventh graders Tristan Froeber, Sydnee Momakov, Breahna Stager and Katie Zillman along with eighth graders Fischer Lees and Piper Meek as they all ran lifetime bests for the 3000 meter distance!

A summary for the day? The Panther performances were an incredible birthday presents for Coach Lowman!

Coach Terry L. Howard

Here are the line score:

Boys		3000 M
Blake M	5^th	11:59
Trey	17^th	12:44
Travis	22^nd	13:06	P.R.
Adan	23^rd	13:15
Alex	25^th	13:20	P.R.
Fischer	38^th	13:48	P.R.
Carson H	39^th	14:15
Will	40^th	14:30
Tanner	43^rd	14:41
Ricky?	47^th	14:51	P.R.?
Scott	48^th	15:01
Tristan	55^th	15:38	P.R.
Carson	60^th	16:32
	of 72

Girls
Sydnee B	2^nd	12:00	P.R.
Abigail	5^th	12:31
Chloe	6^th	12:41	P.R.
Emelia	9^th	12:48
Paige	10^th	12:55
Sydnee M	17^th	13:54	P.R.
Lillian	18^th	14:14
Katie	25^th	14:32	P.R.
Mary	27^th	14:40
Elizabeth	28^th	14:45
Piper	35^th	15:17	P.R.
Olivia	36^th	15:20
Mickhala	39^th	15:39
Tanalee	40^th	15:53
Breahna	47^th	17:15	P.R.
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