The "Run-Down": Gorge Cup @ Trout Lake
We left Washougal in time to avoid the down-pours of the afternoon, but the Panthers down-poured on nine other gorge area teams from Oregon and Washington (only six for the MS team). Our mindset a few hours before was “’Weather’ or not, here we come to Trout Lake” for the first ever Gorge Cup XC Invitational, where we won each of the team races where we fielded complete teams..
With a bus delay and issues with the race numbers, we frantically distributed the MS girls’ race numbers with only a few minutes to spare, but the results of the race was like a flash flood of brand new Orange uniforms! Our typical scoring five captured over half of the first eight places in the race with Eighth graders Chloe Johnson and Sydnee Boothby both beating a fine runner Myana Stock from Trout Lake. Our barrage of seventh graders was not far behind with Elle Thomas, Jamie Maas and Danica Stinchfield placing 4th, 5th and 8th. Since Trout Lake was an incomplete team, our score was reduced to a meager 16 (15 is a perfect score) with the next closest team (HRV) tallying up to 48. Seventh Grader Claire Zakovics moved up the Panther ladder as she appears to be truly catching on to this sport in a big way. The biggest improvement over Ultimook came from classmate Marissa Garcia. This Panther team really set the pace for the rest of the day.
The MS boys managed to beat out HRV for the team title as well, but with a smaller margin of victory, 43 to 59. Eighth graders (and very close friends) Trey Keyser and Alex Holden brought huge smiles to the coaching staff as Trey grabbed 2nd place and Alex improved greatly from Ultimook to place 11th. Seventh grader Samuel Grice proved that last week was no fluke as he threw down another excellent performance placing 8th. Eighth grader Blake Mattern and seventh grader Ben Houston rounded out the scoring five with 13th and 19th place. Seventh grader Bryce Condon moved up a couple of slots on the team to the 6th man position to give the Panthers more depth while classmate Ian Fedderson had remarkable improvement over the last week and a half. The boys were also sporting new uniforms, and in black with orange lettering, they were more like stealth bombers that snuck up on the competition and blew them away!
When it rains, it pours. And the Panthers poured out more victorious performances at the HS level. Our varsity girls team ran with much more substance than at Ultimook with the return of senior Brooklyn Bausch and the appearance of freshman Savea Mansfield. Brooklyn ran a huge Black Course P.R. by 24 seconds, which is arguably her best performance ever. Savea made her debut to cross country like a clash of thunder (we did not have any real thunder like they did in Washougal this afternoon) as she cracked our top 10 ten all-time list; considering this course unofficially measured out to be 150-200 meters long, she will surely move up the ranks on that list when we hit the faster courses. She made out like a card shark as her time was a “double black Jack” (21:21). But it was the heroics of senior Annabelle Palmer that allowed the team to yell out “Winner, Winner! Chicken Dinner!” as she was the tie-breaker, beating Columbia’s (White Salmon) sixth runner by just three places! Oh – I forgot something… senior Amelia Pullen smashed her own senior record in a run-away victory in 19:18.4, the third fastest time for a 2A girl so far. Yep – we can’t wait until we step onto a fast course!!!
For the second big meet in a row, the varsity boys nearly beat all the other teams combined as they placed six Panthers in the top 10! This week, we lowered our score to just 28 points. As usual, no one could stay in front of senior Gabriel Dinnel for the whole race. He waltzed through the “farm field” filled course in 16:41.3. Senior Troy Prince-Butterfield settled for third as he was protecting a minor knee issue. The real fireworks that seemed like lightning coming from the sky was produced by the pack of panthers placing 7th through 10th (sophomore Jonathan Wells, senior Ian Palmer, junior Jackson Keyser and senior Koy Chaston). There was only a 10 second spread between the four (17:25 to 17:35) sandwiched between the second runners from Barlow and Columbia, the 2nd and 3rd place teams. Our 28 points was 25 points better than Barlow’s score.
The biggest Panther smile from either of the Future Varsity races came from sophomore Ana Ferriero as she had reservations about being able to just finish her first race, much less placing in the upper third! Panthers stole five of the top seven spots in the Boys race. “Upgrade to orange” uniform performances came from sophomore Donovan Bailey, freshman JJ Collins and juniors Brett Lawton and Hayden Stinchfield. The boys’ team score of just 24 does mean that we did beat all the other teams combined (27 is the magic number for that honor).
It is highly unlikely that we will be returning to Trout Lake in 2019 as this meet is intended to rotate through several schools, of which Washougal may put in the bid to host next year.
Next week, most Panthers will race once while some will race twice. Our next meet is Wednesday at Alderbrook Park against Hockinson (our girls team’s biggest challenge within the league) and Woodland. Then we will take a select few to Boise, Idaho to race in a high profile meet on Saturday the 22nd.
Coach Terry L. Howard
Here are the line scores:
|
Varsity Boys |
|
5000 M |
|
|
Gabriel |
1st |
16:41.3 |
|
|
Troy |
3rd |
17:08.9 |
|
|
Jonathan |
7th |
17:26.0 |
|
|
Ian |
8th |
17:26.3 |
P.R. Black |
|
Jackson |
9th |
17:29.3 |
P.R. Any |
|
Koy |
10th |
17:35.4 |
|
|
Jeffrey |
24th |
19:14.1 |
P.R. Black |
|
|
of 50 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Future Varsity |
|
|
|
|
Caden |
1st |
18:31.1 |
P.R. Black |
|
Andrew |
2nd |
18:58.2 |
P.R. Black |
|
Sam |
4th |
19:20 |
|
|
Donovan |
5th |
19:28.4 |
|
|
Warren |
7th |
19:35.8 |
|
|
Jack |
12th |
20:22.7 |
|
|
Hayden S |
18th |
20:58.6 |
|
|
Ted |
20th |
21:00.2 |
|
|
Ethan |
23rd |
21:13.9 |
|
|
Sage |
26th |
21:27.1 |
|
|
Derek |
28th |
21:41.0 |
|
|
Gavin |
30th |
21:43.4 |
|
|
Hayden B |
38th |
22:29.5 |
|
|
Jacob |
42nd |
22:43.1 |
P.R. Black |
|
Scott |
44th |
23:03.0 |
|
|
Brett |
53rd |
23:50.1 |
P.R. Black |
|
JJ |
56th |
24:20.7 |
P.R. Black |
|
Fischer |
58th |
24:26.7 |
P.R. Black |
|
Carson |
61st |
25:32.0 |
|
|
Blake |
62nd |
25:32.6 |
P.R. Black |
|
|
of 70 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Varsity Girls |
|
5000 M |
|
|
Amelia |
1st |
19:18.4 |
P.R. Black |
|
Savea |
5th |
21:21.7 |
|
|
Brooklyn |
8th |
21:53.7 |
P.R. Black |
|
Paige |
17th |
23:09.4 |
P.R. Black |
|
Meryl |
22nd |
23:37.9 |
|
|
Annabelle |
29th |
24:11.7 |
|
|
|
of 47 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Future Varsity |
|
|
|
|
Clara |
5th |
24:53.9 |
|
|
Hallie |
7th |
25:07.1 |
|
|
Ana |
14th |
26:22.7 |
|
|
|
of 44 |
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