The "Run-Down": RA Long at Home

 

Home, sweet home! Our battle against RA Long was our first home meet of two for the 2016 season. However, since RA Long is more in a building mode, the true battle was the battle within. Within the team to determine who will race at the varsity level on Saturday. Within many individuals, determining how tough some of our new Panther XC runners are. Here are how things went on another "Black" course, one with comparable speed, or lack thereof, as our first two races.

 

Sophomore Amelia Pullen notched her first cross country victory of her life, just missing the course record with her time of 21:21.4, and fellow sophomores Brooklyn Bausch and Annabelle Palmer ran well enough to cross the finish line before RA Long girl #1. That in itself was pretty much enough to secure the win for the Panthers. Senior team captain Hannah Swigert, shortly after jumping out of the Panther mascot suit, jumped into a standard race for her and captured 2nd place. Our biggest surprise came from freshman Morgan Stinchfield, also besting RA Long girl #1, as she raced the race of her life (nearly 2 minutes faster than the week before) to secure her varsity spot on Saturday. Next on the list for surprise list was sophomore Hallie Morris. She was nearly 2 and a half minutes better than the week before as she finally ran fast enough for the side ache that had been "catching" her was left far behind. She managed to be our seventh Panther as she also earned the right to race varsity on Saturday. The team score was very lopsided as WHS posted one of the biggest "W"'s in recent history, 15 to 46, just 4 points shy of a perfect score.

 

The success of our boys could not quite match that of the girls, but was rather impressive as well. Missing our two best sophomores, the Panthers still managed to capture six of the top seven spots. Secondary sophomore (we have a ton of them) Ian Palmer, propelled himself forward into a serious contender for varsity. His performance, 19:20, was noted as the most valiant effort but fell a few seconds shy of making the varsity squad. Just making the cut was junior Tanner Coltrane, 19:13, in just his second race in a Panther XC uniform. Freshman Jackson Keyser showed that last week's Runner of the Week performance was not a fluke as he was our 4th Panther across the finish line. The final score was 19 to 40, a very healthy win for the Panthers.

 

Other noteworthy performances for the Panther boys included senior Aiden Pullen with an easy dual meet win, and Junior Jacob Arata with freshmen Dallin Kanzler and Derek Lawton posting solid PR's. However, the improvement from freshman Spencer Perkins and his solid racing focus in his race brought just as big of smile to the coaching staff as any Panther performance.

 

Next stop for the Panthers is the big Nike meet at Portland Meadows on Saturday. We are definitely looking forward to running on an "orange" course.

 

Coach Terry L. Howard

 

 

Here are the line scores:

 

Boys

 

5000 M

 

 Aiden

1st

18:06 

 

 Tanner L

3rd

18:43

 P.R. Black

 Koy

4th

18:49

 P.R. Black

 Jackson

5th

19:06

 P.R. Black

 Tanner C

6th

19:13

 P.R. Black

 Ian

7th

19:20

 P.R. Black

 Jeffrey

12th

19:55

 

 Warren

13th

20:07

 P.R. Black

 Andrew

14th

20:28

 P.R. Black

 Dallin

17th

21:23

 P.R. Black

 Caden

18th

21:33

 

 Jacob

19th

21:38

 P.R. Black

 Trent

21st

21:49

 P.R. Black

 Derek

24th

23:02

 P.R. Black

 Hayden

25th

23:04

 P.R. Black

 Scott

28th

24:01

 P.R. Black

 Brett

31st

25:10

 P.R. Black

 Spencer

37th

29:23

 

 

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Girls

 

 

 

 Amelia

1st

21:21.4

 P.R. Black

 Hannah

2nd

21:48.6

 

 Brooklyn

3rd

23:15.9

 P.R. Black

 Annabelle

4th

23:41.3

 P.R. Black

 Morgan

5th

23:54.7

 P.R. Black

 Bekah

8th

24:47

 P.R. Black

 Hallie

9th

25:01

 P.R. Black

 Kaylee

10th

25:04

 

 Alexis

11th

25:24

 

 Olivia

13th

25:57

 P.R. Black

 Tess

15th

26:09

 P.R. Black

 Abby

18th

31:40

 

 Jeannine

19th

32:33

 

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