Kent-Meridian’s Martin posts highest placing for local cross country runners at state

Girls ruled on Nov. 5 in Pasco at the 4A cross country state championships.

Tahoma won the girls team title while Kent-Meridian’s Alexia Martin was the highest local individual when she crossed the finish line in fourth place.

“We’re pretty excited,” said Garry Conner, the Bears’ head coach. “It’s a big win for us.”

Martin, a senior, completed the race in 18 minutes, 20 seconds. Martin also placed fourth at the league and district meets. It was the highest individual ranking of any boys or girls runner from Tahoma or Kent schools.

 

 

Tahoma brings home the state championship

After narrowly losing to Bellarmine Prep at the Westside Classic district meet the week prior, 77-79, Tahoma was able pull together and outrun them 88-99 at the Sun Willows Golf Course.

Conner attributed several factors to the Bears victory. The girls came into the race all healthy after fighting several illnesses throughout the season. Additionally, they raced strategically in order to determine their competition during the district meet.

But, in the end, he credited every single runner on the team for racing well.

“It was a group effort,” Conner said. “At that state meet, you just can’t make any mistakes. If you do, you’re a six to 10 (place) team. If any one of those girls didn’t run well, we wouldn’t have won the state meet. It was really all the seven girls.”

“It was an incredible experience,” junior Elizabeth Oosterhout said. “Our team will remember it our whole lives. Every girl pulled their own weight and then some.”

Oosterhout placed 16th at 18:51, a vast improvement over last year’s 30th and 19:11.

“I feel good about my improvement in my performance,” she said. She added, however, “I think I let my nerves take over me and I got really worried.” Next year she said she will try to break into the top 10.

Freshman Abby Atchison led the Bears by placing eighth with a time of 18:40, a 23 second PR.

“I was really thrilled with how the race turned out,” Atchison said. “I really just felt confident going into the race, and our coaches have been working hard to peak our whole team. It really helped me when the race started. It just really came together.”

The rest of the Bears team included freshman Delaney Tiernan (21st, 19:02), senior Juliana Mock (44th, 19:29) sophomore Maddy Dennis (101st, 20:20) and freshman Katelyn Sherick (114th, 20:28).

Having taken the title, Conner said they now have to defend it next year.

“We’re going to try to make another run at it,” he said. “My coaching staff is excited. We’re just taking it all in.”

The Royals placed 16th in their first appearance at the state meet in school history.

Martin’s time of 18:20, a 22 second PR, was the fastest she had run in a race since her freshman year in 2009, when she took second at district with a time of 18:42.

Other Royals runners included sophomores Ruby Virk (106th, 20:24) Briann Funk (124th, 20:43), Sara Madden (132nd, 21:20) and Araceli Rios (138th, 21:55), senior Chelsea Watkins (136st, 21:50) and junior Christina Atkinson (146th, 24:24).

 

 

No offseason for boys cross country runners

In the boys race Tahoma fought to secure eighth place. Although they were hoping to stand on the podium, the team still considers it progress from last year’s 15th place.

“We still have some growing to do, some running maturity that needs to take place,” Conner said. “We’re moving in the right direction. We had a good meet.”

“I thought we did pretty good,” said senior James Dagley. “We’re going to be even better next year. I’d say we’d probably make the podium next year.”

Notable performances included sophomore Riley Campell who took 31st with 16:10, a PR and a minute and 20 second improvement over his time at last year’s state championship, where he placed 130th.

“I felt pretty good,” Campell said. “I was hoping to get under 16 minutes, but I feel good about it.”

“He had a really good run,” Conner said.

Dagley placed 42nd with a time of 16:17, which was disappointing for him after coming in 29th last year.

“Not very good,” Dagley said of his performance. “It wasn’t my best race. There’s been a lot of things this season I’ve been battling with.”

He explained that he’s been dealing with several debilitating issues, such as a stress fracture, which hurt his pre-season training in the summer.

“I swam and biked, but, it wasn’t enough to stay in shape,” Dagley said.

With the top four runners coming back next year, Conner is confident Tahoma will be able to build upon the strength of this year’s squad.

“The (training for) state championship starts now,” he said. “We’ll give them a couple days off and then we’re up and rolling again.”

The Kentwood boys took 13th, one place lower than last year.

Head Coach Ken Paul, however, stated he was pleased with the performance after losing several top runners to graduation.

“They did well,” he said. “Things were really, really close. We were hoping to be in the top 10, realistically we could have been 11th. If you look across the board, the competitors were really fast. It was a really fast race this year.”

Senior Danny Lunder finished his final high school cross country race at 23rd with a time of 16:04. Even though that’s seconds away from breaking the 16 minute barrier he had hoped to achieve, he was still able to break his PR.

“I felt pretty good,” he said. “I was pretty happy for my PR. I pushed my running to the max during the race because there’s no cross country after this. I knew that I had to give it my all because there’s nothing left. I’m going to look back on this and remember what it felt like so I decided to give it my all.”

His coach was impressed with Lunder’s efforts.

“Danny ran a great race,” Paul said. “He ran his best time on a hard course. That’s kind of a hard course to do it on. Danny, being the competitor and perfectionist he is, was probably disappointed, but he shouldn’t be.”

Individual performances included Kentlake junior Alexander Martinez, who placed 47th with a time of 16:20, Kent-Meridian senior Teddy Teklu, who placed 70th with a time of 16:33 and Kentridge senior Talon Abernathy and junior Sterling Bath, who placed 88th with a time of 16:47 and 128th at 17:27 respectively.