The "Run-Down": Hood River Valley ("Skip Sparks" Invite)

For the Panther Varsity girls, it was almost deja vu all over again with respect to the Tillamook race. The distribution of individual awards and team placement was exactly the same as 11 days earlier. Sophomore Amelia Pullen held to her signature race strategy of starting in the middle and passing runners like crazy after the first 400 meters to capture 4th place. Senior Hannah Swigert also duplicated her 9th place finish from Tillamook and the team placed 3rd again! But on the whole, our Panther girls ran much better as we gained over 7 minutes on the dominating Hood River Valley girls, a team we hope to run head to head with next year. Sophomores Brooklyn Bausch and Annabelle Palmer did more than their fair share of the time gain on the HRV Eagles. Annabelle improved nearly 2 minutes and Brooklyn almost 40 seconds; the important side note statistic is that less than half of the Eagles ran faster than at Tillamook while the panthers punched in at about 75% success rate on that challenge. On the Future Varsity side of things, first time XC racer Junior Bekah Shilling also earned a 9th place ribbon as she overcame a slight injury to compete.

A solid team performance from our varsity boys gave them a third place team ranking, just an "arm's length away" from the HRV Boys, a team that placed second in the big school race at Tillamook. The big surprise in this race was the impressive first mile from Sophomore Koy Chaston. Despite fading in the second half of the race, he still ran nearly 30 seconds faster, while Junior Tanner Lees matched that improvement with a similar clocking. The only Varsity Panther to improve more was Senior Aiden Pullen, mostly due to him successfully keeping both shoes on this race. Junior Troy Prince-Butterfield and Sophomore Ian Palmer also improved several seconds while classmate Gabriel Dinnel ran strong through 2 miles abut an aggravated knee issue pulled him back to 6th places.

For the Future Varsity boys (and the FV girls as well), a third place team placing is what they earned. When looking at the team placings at all HS levels, the Panthers were only out-classed by 5A or 6A schools (the largest two levels) from Oregon. There were 14 teams in attendance at this meet. On the individual side of things for this race (of which we had the largest number of Panthers in of the 4 races), there was a lot to cheer about. Freshman Jackson Keyser, after an impressive summer of workouts, proved he was varsity material as he led a fine field into the first lower trail at the mile mark. The look on determination was enough to keep him in second by the end of the second trail loop. Using completely different tactics, Junior Tanner Coltrane started conservatively and strategically passed all but one of the Franklin runners in the last mile. Tanner ended up 3rd in the field of 114. Improvements over Tillamook came from any Panthers in this race. Freshman Dallin Kanzler and Sophomore Andrew McElhaney were unofficial improvements (as they ran the Open Race in Tillamook). The official improvers were Freshmen Derek Lawton, Scott Lees and Hayden Stinchfield along with Sophomore Trenton Lowe. Hayden took the cake in regards to improving in that group as he was well over 2 minutes faster than before.

Before the High School races started, the Middle Schoolers kept their own pattern of team placings. Both the girls and the boys placed 2nd in very close races. The girls were bested by Hermiston with 56 points while two other teams match our 58. WOW! Four teams within 3 points! The girls won the tie breaker due to strength in numbers. Our "6th runner" was really 4 of them, Eight Graders Brienna Elliot, Milan Shirakawa and Meryl Keeler joined first time racer Seventh Grader Paige Maas, all within 5 seconds placing 23rd through 26th. There were 116 in the race! Notable improvement came from Seventh Grader Isabelle Klopman (16th) while first timer classmates Lillian Mucha and Sammy Mederos were our 4th and 5th, just ahead of our "6th Runner" pack. As usual, our Eighth Grade veterans picked up top ten award ribbons: Olivia Dinnel in 3rd and Gabby Warta in 9th. Side note: Panther girls collected 9th place in all three girls' races today!

On the strength of the Eighth Graders, the Panther boys almost squeezed three into the top ten. Jonathan Wells was 3rd, Sam Lewis (in his season opener) was 9th and Ethan Mills missed 10th by 2 steps. We got to welcome back their classmate Jace Poulsen in 16th, while other classmates Sage Morris and Ted West captured 22nd and 35th out of 115. Ted appears to be the most improved from last year as he had an impressive summer of training like Jackson did. Luke Stanton was the first seventh grader Panther across the line in 49th with class mate Garrett Ludma a few seconds behind in 50th.

Panther Coaches are happy. We are improving. We are smiling after races and getting the team places we expect... or better.

On Tuesday, we host an eight team Middle School Invitational while the High Schoolers host RA Long. This is the first of the two home meets in 2016.

Coach Terry L. Howard

Here are the line scores:

Varsity Boys		5000 M
Gabriel	6^th	17:24.5
Aiden	13^th	18:06.9
Troy	21^st	18:39.3
Koy	28^th	19:06.4
Tanner L	31^st	19:28.6	P.R. Black
Ian	41^st	20:34.4	P.R. Black
Warren	56^th	21:37.9
	of 77
Future Varsity
Jackson	2^nd	19:24.6	P.R. Black
Tanner C	3^rd	19:32.5
Jeffrey	19^th	21:24.7
Andrew	22^nd	21:41.5
Trent	33^rd	22:09.3	P.R. Black
Dallin	43^rd	22:48.2
Jacob	53^rd	23:37.7
Hayden	57^th	23:54.0	P.R. Black
Derek	66^th	24:29.8	P.R. Black
Scott	71^st	24:37.0	P.R. Black
Brett	94^th	27:30.5
Spencer	111^th	36:31.6
	of 114
Varsity Girls
Amelia	4^th	21:25.7	P.R. Black
Hannah	9^th	22:13.3
Brooklyn	16^th	23:28.3	P.R. Black
Annabelle	22^nd	24:13.2
Morgan	32^nd	25:48.1	P.R. Black
Tess	42^nd	27:07.7
Olivia	43^rd	27:10.3
	of 52
Future Varsity
Bekah	9^th	25:38.0
Kaylee	14^th	26:33.1
Hallie	26^th	27:33.3	P.R. Black
Jeannine	59^th	33:09.9
Abby	61^st	37:18.3
	of 64