Hood River Valley’s boys cross country team, stoked in part by a promise of a step-up in post-race meal choices, won the 2023 Northwest Oregon Conference district championship Oct. 25 at Champoeg State Park.
The Eagles scored 47 points to beat runner-up Wilsonville (66). HRV was led by the second- and third-place finishes by junior Logan King and Kai Wagner. King finished the 5,000-meter course in 16 minutes, 17 seconds, with Wagner a second behind. Wilsonville sophomore Liam Wilde won the race in 15:49.
Coach Brandon Bertram’s HRV team also received a seventh-place finish from sophomore Sam Knoll (16:26), while junior David Kerr was 18th (17:20) and sophomore Victor Coffman was 19th (17:24) to complete the Eagle team score. Colin Gerald (28th, 18:29) and Felipe Mendez (47th, 19:46) also competed on varsity at district for HRV.
“It’s so fun when guys put in that work, since June, and have a mindset and follow through with it,” Bertram said of his boys squad. “And in such a decisive fashion.
“I really stressed the mindset all year of a true team, of doing it together.”
HRV was among the favorites to win the district title, but entered the meet ranked second to Wilsonville based on best times this season.
Bertram said every team has its own personality. Of this year’s boys squad, he said, “When I show up to practice, we just have an open discussion … what do we want to do, what do we feel like we need. And same with race tactics. It’s really open … and it’s by committee — very co-op. It’s pretty fun.”
The Eagle runners had some extra incentive to win the district crown — a promise by Bertram that the bus ride home would include a stop — not at Safeway or Fred Meyer. The hour-out-of-way trip to In-And-Out in Keizer was nixed by the coach, but there were more selections this time on the post-district meet trip back to the Gorge, he said. “That’s all it takes to please teenagers.”
The Hood River Valley girls team finished third in the NWOC meet, in one of the closest team races in league history. Wilsonville won with 55 points, La Salle Prep was second with 56, and HRV third with 59. Hood River was led by sophomore Syl Perrin, who was fourth overall. Canby’s MacKenzie Bigej won the race in 17:31.
"It was right there,” Bertram said of another near title for the HRV girls. He said he has told his runners, pre-race, that the meet would come down to five or so points.
HRV’s second through fifth runners ran in a fairly tight pack, finishing within 41 seconds of each other. Sophomore Charlotte Fuller was 11th (21:07), junior Katie Godkin was 13th (21:26); and sophomore Sadie Baumann and junior Olivia Millikin-Spray were 15th and 16th, in 21:43 and 21:48, respectively. Frosh Isabel Ulland (26th, 22:52) and Rowan Halseth (30th, 23:16) completed the varsity seven for the Eagles.
“They gave a valiant effort yesterday,” Bertram said of his girls team. Perrin were her usually steady self, having trained into one of the best in the Class 5A ranks. “They each PR’d — from anywhere to 18 seconds to a minute,” Bertram said.
The Hood River boys team earned an automatic berth in the Nov. 4 OSAA state meet at Lane Community College in Eugene. The Hood River girls also secured a state meet berth (one of five wild card berths available to Class 5A teams).
The third-place finish by the HRV girls snapped the school’s district championship streak at seven. Coach Bertram’s girls teams won those seven district crowns in three different conferences: Columbia River, 2016 and 2017, Intermountain, 2018 through 2021, and NWOC in 2022.
The Hood River girls did keep alive the sixth-longest Oregon active streak of consecutive years of qualifying for the state meet — 13 successive seasons. Hood River has won a district cross country title (either girls or boys) 11 of the past 12 seasons.
Commented
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.