The "Run-Down": League Championships @ Hockinson Meadows
Lightning and thunder in Washougal. A tornado in Longview! Half way in between was Hockinson Meadows, where the calm weather allowed the Panthers to have a downpour of huge P.R.'s! We posted 7 P.R.'s that were greater than 30 seconds, and one Season's Best by over a minute from Junior Meredith Collins. It was proof that the Panthers came to run - "weather" or not any of the other schools did.
The new course is now classified as an Orange course, thus we were expecting many P.R.'s. The merged Future Varsity race put nine Panthers on the starting line, of which six of them walked away with top ten ribbons. Our boys came through with 4 out of 5 P.R.'s. Freshman Bryson Schurman decided to take charge the first mile and run in the top ten. Juniors Isaac Harvey (9th) and Taylor Leifsen (11th) with Sophomore Evan Hoff (10th) managed to catch him in the second half of the race. Bryson held on to 15th place and wounded warrior Senior Jesse Reagan was tough enough to finish on a wrapped ankle to secure a second place team finish for the Panthers. For the girls, our "Little Princess" Abby Lees held off a formidable kick from Ridgefield's top girl in the race so she could be crowned "Queen" of the Future Varsity in 2014. This marks the third consecutive year a panther had earned that honor. Her time of 25:56.8 was a P.R. by 52 seconds. Freshman Jeannine Jones' 1:11 P.R. helped her capture 5th in the race.
Our Varsity girls were just as impressive in their race. We hit on "4 out of 5 cylinders"; 4 of our scorers had good or better races which was enough to dominate the field with a 19 point win. Considering that Ridgefield was missing runner #2, we definitely made a statement that we are now ready to go head to head with them when they are full strength. But is sure feels good winning the League Meet for the THIRD YEAR IN A ROW! When it came to the individual title, Sophomore Courtney Owens went head to head with Ridgefield star Bailey Birch and made it an exciting race. They were stride for stride for the first 2 plus miles but Bailey pulled away the last kilometer while both runners posted times worthy of all-state honors. Courtney's time of 19:24.2 smashes her former school record by 52 seconds - not a bad day's work! The two of them out-distanced the rest of the field by well over a minute. Although Sophomore Hannah Lintala (11th) managed just a mediocre performance, Senior Karina Miller (12th) was just a few seconds off of her best performance of the year placing right behind her to be the first 3rd runner across the line. Meredith (14th) was the first 4th girl with her fantabulous season's best to practically secure the team title. Our biggest P.R. of the day was from Sophomore Lydia Lyall. Her 18th place finish was the reason we won by a sizable margin and was 1:14 faster than her previous best from last year.
The boys' had a 50/50 day. 50% of the races brought smiles to our faces while the other 50% fell in the category of "we will do much better next week." Sophomore Aiden Pullen (5th) finally cut under the 17:00 milestone thanks to a fantastic kick to finally bested fellow sophomore Austin Beasley of Mark Morris for the first time ever. Junior Bailey Duncan found a little extra mud as he hit the ground after the first kilometer, then wished he had is spikes on rather than racing flats rounding the soccer fields. In lieu of these encumbrances, his 11th place finish prompted him to vow to get a better place at District next week. Senior Nicolas Velardi (13th) paced himself nicely and waltzed across the finish line just ahead of his Woodland target with a season's best by 20 seconds. Junior Luke Belzer was only 90% as he was recovering from illness (reason he missed last week's race) while class mate Collin Manning cheered from the sidelines. Collin is recovering from apparently the same bug and projects to be full strength next week to help the Panthers make their bid to qualify for state. Freshmen Tanner Lees and Jamison Wright both broke P.R.'s and Jamison busted 19:00 for the first time. The boys finished a competitive 4th place, which is encouraging in light of holding back Collin and the other improvements we are slated to make in the next week.
Next week, we take on the challenge of a new District Meet course at Lewis River Golf Course in Woodland. This meet is our ticket to state!
Coach Terry L. Howard
Here are the line scores:
|
Varsity Boys |
|
1 Mile |
2 Mile |
5000 M |
|
|
Aiden |
5th |
|
|
16:58.0 |
P.R. |
|
Bailey |
11th |
|
|
17:28.7 |
|
|
Nicolas V. |
13th |
|
|
17:41.6 |
|
|
Luke |
20th |
|
|
18:02.2 |
|
|
Tanner |
35th |
|
|
18:53.8 |
P.R. |
|
Jamison |
37th |
|
|
18:55.5 |
P.R. |
|
Gabe |
44th |
|
|
19:44.4 |
|
|
of 45 |
|
|
|
||
|
Future Varsity Boys |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Isaac |
9th |
|
|
20:42.1 |
P.R. |
|
Evan |
10th |
|
|
20:43.9 |
P.R. |
|
Taylor |
11th |
|
|
20:46.7 |
P.R. |
|
Bryson |
15th |
|
|
20:57 |
P.R. |
|
Jesse |
40th |
|
|
23:22.0 |
|
|
|
of 54 |
|
|
|
|
|
Varsity Girls |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Courtney |
2nd |
|
|
19:24.2 |
P.R. |
|
Hannah |
11th |
|
|
21:33.2 |
|
|
Karina |
12th |
|
|
21:56.4 |
|
|
Meredith |
14th |
|
|
22:46.7 |
|
|
Lydia |
18th |
|
|
23:21.2 |
P.R. |
|
MacKenzie |
36th |
|
|
26:33.5 |
|
|
|
of 39 |
|
|
|
|
|
Future Varsity Girls |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Abby |
1st |
|
|
25:56.8 |
P.R. |
|
Jeannine |
5th |
|
|
27:25.6 |
P.R. |
|
Genevieve |
7th |
|
|
28:41.9 |
|
|
Amber |
10th |
|
|
30:27.8 |
|
|
|
of 12 |
|
|
|
|