The "Run-Down": All-League (Lake Sacagawea)

The best way to describe it was that “today was Personal Record day!” After racing on mostly black courses all year long, we finally stepped on the Willamette Mission State Park course that is about as flat and fast as it can get, and still be of legitimate distance. 19 of our 21 guys ran P.R.’s. The only two that did not were sophomore Jackson Keyser, who was limping around the course from an injury, and freshman Jonathan Wells, who missed by less than 2 seconds with respect to his fabulous race at Nike PDX. On the girls side of things, we had almost as much success as we posted seven lifetime bests out of 10 opportunities.

Five weeks ago (and a day), we ran at Lake Sacagawea. Some runners performed below normal on that day. Today was a day of redemption as we returned to run the same course. There was some extra incentive as we had a competition and planned to reward the best improvers.

The Middle School race turned out to be a battle of the sexes, as the boys and the girls were combined into a single event. Even though there were a couple of other schools involved, it really did wind up being Panther Boys vs. Panther Girls! Ten and a half minutes after the gun went off (it was only a mile and half race), the scores could be added up and our girls did beat the boys in a dual meet scoring of 25 to 30! Leading the way was eighth grader Abigail Wall who was the overall winner in 9:19. The girls also pulled of a sweep of the first 5 places in regards to the girls race. Seventh grader Chloe Johnson (2nd) was the biggest girl improver at exactly one full minute from before, while classmates Sydnee Boothby (3rd) and Emelia Warta (4th) demonstrated there consistency throughout the season. Eighth grader Paige Maas (5th) was in her top running form as see improved 32 seconds from the race before. Other eighth graders Lillian Mucha and Mary Lendvoyi were awarded 4th and 5th ribbons with respect to girls in that class, while copy-cat seventh graders Sydnee Momakov and Katie Zillman achieved the same awards for the younger class of girls.

Back to the effort of our boys, they man-handled the Woodland team by a score of 17 to 45, a landslide victory! Our first boy across the line was seventh grader Blake Mattern - the first boy from any school as well. Gavin Keyser was a few steps behind him and was the first eighth grade boy to finish. Younger brother Trey Keyser was third, about 100 meters behind. He led a drove of Panther seventh graders: Travis Gibson, Adan Magana, Alex Holden and Carson Holmes, all placing between 6th and 11th. This group is obviously the reason we expect to have great success in the future. The improvement of the day, or rather the month, went to eighth grader Ezekiel Cerling-Austin as he a minute and 18 seconds better than the previous race there.

Our future varsity boys hammered out second place. With the weather starting to hammer down on us, we only had one PR; it came from sophomore Derek Lawton (19:33) by a mere 4 tenths of a second! Our lone PR from the Future Varsity girls came from junior Olivia Dayley; her time of 24:01 is the fastest time ever for a Future Varsity Panther girl at League.

For the next race, the rain and wind came and chilled things off – a lot! This was the varsity boys race. Three juniors ran their best races of the season: Troy Prince-Butterfield (4th when ranked 6th), Warren Henderson (15th – P.R. by 4 seconds) and Koy Chaston (16th – just a few seconds off of his “cosmic orange” effort last week). The team place just 8 points behind Ridgefield, so we left the course knowing that our “A” game is needed to beat them next week.

Our girls also placed second as a team, nine points behind a full-strength Hockinson. We also know that our best performances can match what they did. Junior Amelia Pullen lost several seconds on the first mile, but recovered fine to win easily by 25 seconds. Senior Alexis Maniscalco (21:59) broke 22 minutes for the first time as she was pulled along by sophomore Morgan Stinchfield as she squeaked out a P.R. by less than 2 seconds for the second week in a row.

Our high school competition for most improved on this course relative to last month went to freshman Meryl Keeler. Although she did not match her P.R., she improved 1:52 – AMAZING! Warren Henderson claimed second place in this competition as he improved 1:46!

Next week, the HS kids compete (varsity only) in the District meet at Lewis River Golf Course on Saturday the 28th. Weather permitting, we should rack up some historic times!

Coach Terry L. Howard

Here are the line scores:

Varsity Boys		5000 M
Gabriel	2^nd	16:20
Troy	4^th	16:41
Ian	9^th	17:28
Jonathan	13^th	17:34.2
Warren	15^th	17:40	P.R.
Koy	16^th	17:41
Tanner	23^rd	18:00
Caden	27^th	18:05
Andrew	34^nd	18:36
Jackson	39^th	18:45
	of 61

Future Varsity
Ethan	5^th	19:17
Sam	6^rd	19:18
Derek	7^th	19:33	P.R.
Ted	10^th	19:38
Hayden	13^th	19:59
Sage	24^th	20:59
Trent	41^st	22:19
Scott	43^rd	22:41
Carson	45^th	23:00
Brett	52^nd	23:30
Maddox	54^th	23:33.1
Quinn	58^th	23:43
	of 74

Varsity Girls
Amelia	1^st	19:25	C.R.?
Meryl	4^th	20:33
Brooklyn	16^th	21:55
Morgan	17^th	21:56	P.R.
Alexis	18^nd	21:59	P.R.
Annabelle	24^th	22:24
Bekah	32^nd	22:50
Kaylee	35^th	23:22
	of 50

Future Varsity
Olivia	3^rd	24:01	P.R.
Denise	15^th	26:59
	of 24