The "Run-Down": State Meet @ Sun Willows Golf Course

This marked our fourth year in a row that week maxed out entries to the State Meet. As usual, the Friday trip there was filled with laughs, cheers, walking to Applebee’s, a Winco excursion and van decorating sessions - a bit more so for the girls’ van than the boys’ as the guys decided their State Meet theme would be “We Chillin’.” With the gorge wind speed only in the low single digits this year, it was difficult to find an appropriate tumbleweed at the Boardman Rest Stop to promote for adoption, but junior Jonathan Wells manage to latch onto an infantile specimen to transport to Pasco for the weekend.

The weather forecast fluctuated all week long from “wet” to “warm”, and then pretty much to the colder extreme such that we almost broke out the 32 Degree undergarments. There was a short “frost” delay – only the second one in the past decade for the State Meet. It was perfect “Amelia weather,” so that meant that several Panthers needed gloves on until the gun went off. Yet it was warm enough for us to post nine ‘Black Course’ P.R.’s for the meet, provided we count sophomore Jacob Streuli’s time trial effort on Friday.

Junior Meryl Keeler (21:05.9), sophomore Savea Mansfield (20:06.5) and freshman Violet Hancock (25:43.3) were the three Panther girls that posted those P.R.’s, with Savea coming the closest to her all-time best. A dozen seconds ahead of her was freshman Sydnee Boothby, our first Panther across the line in 26th place. She was only 1.5 seconds off her ‘Black Course’ P.R. on this day. Senior Clara Best held her position in 137th place throughout the last two miles of the race while freshman Daya Sathyaraj was hoping that her ankle would hold out a bit better than it did. Daya slipped back to 143rd in the last mile of the race. Senior Kaylee Timmons managed a season’s best with a time of 24:07.8 to wrap up her high school XC career. So the Panther girls end on a “good” note with a 13th place team finish. A perfect day would have allowed us to catch the Hockinson team like we usually do at this meet, but our friends up north from Tumwater managed to upset them by two points for us since it couldn’t quite happen for us.

The boys that walked away (or more like jogged away on cool down) on Saturday with ‘Black Course’ P.R.’s were seniors Jackson Keyser (16:33.5) and Hayden Stinchfield (17:38.2), junior Ted West (18:59.2) and freshmen Trey Keyser (17:30.7) and Blake Mattern (18:41.1). The two seniors were both strong candidates for ‘Runner of the Week’ with Jackson edging out Hayden, becoming the first runner ever to earn that honor three times in a season – not bad for someone that missed the first 4 meets of the year due to an appendectomy! Senior Caden Lowman and junior Jonathan Wells arguably ran their third best races of the year to help keep the score respectable for the Panthers.

Like the girls, the boys also ran ‘good’, avoiding any tragic performances, to prove that we did deserve to be there. This year, there were no slouch teams for the boys (there was one for the girls) so the Panthers just edged out two other teams by 10 points or less. Had we ran perfectly, we would have caught at least three more, and maybe our Spudder friends in 10th place.

We had four of our Middle School runners there, plus two more that are committed to being on the MS team next year. It is super cool having a good portion of the future team there to experience the incredible races that they will participate in during the years to come.

And for the athlete that left half a box of the Fudge Dipped Coconut bars in the van? Thanks!!! It was an adequate paycheck for me cleaning out the tumbleweed debris from it being tossed throughout the van Friday night. Also, the tumbleweed did get adopted by another team at the meet just as we were leaving.

Coach Terry L. Howard

Line scores:

Varsity Boys		1 Mile	2 Mile	5000 M
Jackson	28^th	5:11.1	10:40.1	16:33.5	P.R. Black
Jonathan	91^st	5:22.8	11:01.0	17:17.2
Trey	113^th	5:24.1	11:14.2	17:30.7	P.R. Black
Hayden	122^nd	5:28.5	11:14.4	17:38.2	P.R. Black
Caden	143^rd	5:29.0	11:22.3	18:02.4
Blake	158^th	5:39.7	11:45.5	18:41.1	P.R. Black
Ted	162^nd	5:41.7	12:01.2	18:59.2	P.R. Black
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Jacob: T-Trial		5:49		19:28	P.R. Black

Varsity Girls
Sydnee	26^th	5:57.0	12:27.5	19:54.6
Savea	32^nd	6:09.3	12:50.3	20:06.5	P.R. Black
Meryl	72^nd	6:29.5	13:28.8	21:05.9	P.R. Black
Clara	137^th	7:08.3	14:46.9	23:07.8
Daya	143^rd	7:11.3	15:04.1	23:41.4
Kaylee	147^th	7:22.5	15:23.0	24:07.8
Violet	153^rd	7:11.1	16:00.3	25:43.3	P.R. Black
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