The "Run-Down": Hockinson/Woodland @ Hockinson

 

Our mid-season race, and it went pretty much as expected. The sky was clear and the temperature was quite warm, just like the weather man predicted. There were minor changes in the course at Hockinson Meadows this year, in a supposed attempt to make the course faster, but there was no solid evidence that effect was achieved as our boys "man-handled" the Hawks of Hockinson and the Beavers from Woodland as expected. Our girls split in the Win/Loss column, a far distance ahead of Woodland, and several steps behind Hockinson. Here how things went during the races.

 

The boys race started with Junior Geer McGee taking the pace out with the top Hockinson kids with that look of determination in his eyes. Tagging along for the ride in that lead pack was senior Noah Collins. Having assignments to guide teammates through the first two miles, Juniors Sean Eustis and Isaac Stinchfield ran a fine last mile (in spite of being fatigued from the morning's challenging workout) to eventually establish the easy 1-2 finish. Geer and Noah captured 4th and 5th overall to solidify the wins. Freshman Nicolas Velardi made a valiant effort the last 400 meters to catch the top freshman in the race, Hockinson's Ben Zora, making up half the 30 meter deficit, to round out our top five, running 19:30 (a Black Course PR). Other Black course PR's were ran by junior Darian Tierney (19:51), freshman Rusty Shiluk (20:02) and senior Nathan Milojevic (21:09) also ran Black Course PR's. One highlight of the day was the boys being just one point away from a perfect score against Woodland (15-49). However, the best highlight of the day on the boys' side was watching the trio of freshman Jacob Smart and sophomores Brendon Brown and Aaron Dunn display team chemistry by reacting to each other's surges throughout the race. The result of this chemical reaction was the boys team's only two life time PR's (regardless of course's the difficulty) from Aaron and Jacob, with Brendon just missing out by a few seconds. Way to help each other explode to your best races ever.

 

For the girls, we ran at less than full throttle plagued with a few slightly sick runners and senior Kendall Utter temporarily sidelined. Senior Kayla Lockard took top honors for the girls with 5th place, and Black Course PR's were run by her, and sophomores Hannah Wright and Megan Anderson. But the most delightful performance of the day came from freshman Karina Miller as she moved up to be Panther #3 for the day and ran a life-time best on any course of 24:18, meeting the Black Course Time lettering standard, as well as earning enough varsity points to push her above 25. Adjusting her time based on the slowness of the course on her much improved performance now puts her in contention for 2nd team All-League honors. Junior Kalli Light was Panther #4 across the finish line and sophomore Kelsey Lagerquist ran perfectly even splits to be our 5th. Our girls appear to be pulling away from all the other teams in the Evergreen Conference to the north, establishing themselves as a probable state qualifying team with Hockinson and Mark Morris.

 

This next week will be a busy one as we move from chemistry to creativity, proving to be fun, entertaining and productive.

 

Coach Terry L. Howard

 

Here are the line scores:

 

Boys

 

Mile 1

Mile 2

5000 M

 

Sean

1st

6:09

12:07

17:53

 

Isaac

2nd

6:08

12:00

18:00

 

Geer

4th

5:53

12:01

19:10

 

Noah

5th

5:53

12:20

19:24

 

Nicolas

8th

6:05

12:13

19:30

PR Black

Darian

10th

6:08

12:37

19:51

PR Black

Rusty

13th

6:07

12:37

20:02

PR Black

Nathan

18th

 

 

21:09

PR Black

Jacob S

25th

 

 

22:44

PR

Aaron

26th

 

 

23:02

PR

Brendon

28th

 

 

23:04

PR Black

 

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Girls

 

 

 

 

 

Kayla

5th

7:08

14:41

23:04

 

Hannah

7th

7:26

15:18

24:08

PR Black

Karina

8th

7:22

15:24

24:18

PR

Kalli

12th

8:11

16:35

25:47

 

Kelsey

16th

9:02

18:09

27:30

 

Serene

19th

9:05

18:08

27:48

 

Sydney H

22nd

8:53

18:03

28:17

 

Megan

23rd

8:53

 

28:20

PR Black

Sydney N

24th

9:02

18:08

28:30

 

Kaitlyn

25th

9:09

18:49

28:39

 

Kari

26th

9:09

18:49

28:42

 

Katie

31st

8:41

18:30

29:42

 

 

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