Hood River girls race to podium finish at state

“For the girls it really wasn’t expected of them to get fourth, so I was very happy with their performance,” HRV Coach Steve Noteboom said.

Hood River runners all exceeded their seed placing. The Eagles were ranked sixth as a team — based on season-best times — entering the meet. Many of those seed times were performed in dry, fall conditions on flat courses. Lane’s layout has a few short hills, but times Saturday were affected more by the rain-soaked course which was muddy in more than a few spots (the 5A girls race was the sixth of nine races).

That didn’t seem to bother the Eagles, as their seven varsity runners all improved by a minimum of 10 spots compared to where they were ranked. Wood was ranked 24th among the runners who qualified for state and gutted out a top-10, all-state finish — which was one of her goals. Wood shadowed Putnam’s Noemi Lundgren from the first mile before passing her in the final 110 meters.

The pack of Alex Bronson, Olivia Nickson and Sophie Kaden finished 29th, 30th and 31st, and Brinna Weiseth completed the Eagle scoring in 50th. Team placing at state is figured without the finishes of runners who qualified as individuals. The adjusted scoring for HRV was 6-25-26-27-45. Wilsonville’s adjusted team places were 12-15-18-31-54.

Hood River’s non-scoring runners were Mikelle Stasak in 52nd and Mieka McKnight in 69th. Those two runners, and Weiseth and Kaden, are seniors.

“(Brinna) had been injured all year and just ran two races at the end of the year — the league meet and the state competition,” Noteboom said of Weiseth, who competed at state as a frosh when she placed second behind teammate Frances Dickenson and HRV won the title. “She ended up being our fifth runner. She ran a great race.”

McKnight was also on that 2018 state champion team and Saturday’s race was the third state competition for the HRV senior.

Hood River was figuring Putnam and Crater were the teams it had to beat to earn a trophy, as they were ranked fourth and fifth before the meet. Wilsonville was ranked eighth, and like HRV, had noticeable improvement throughout its lineup. Two-thirds into the race, HRV was sixth overall behind Putnam and Wilsonville. But Wood and Weiseth both improved one spot, Bronson jumped up two places and Nickson picked off five runners, some with a burst in the final 300 meters on the blue Lane running track.

“The last kilometer they really worked hard to pass girls,” Noteboom said. “I think they passed 10 girls, which pushed us from sixth place to fourth place which allowed us to get a trophy.

“Olivia Nickson ran a great race. She was right up there with Sophie and Alex.”

Pre-meet favorite Corvallis won with 42 points, Crescent Valley was second with 72 and Ashland third with 124. Crescent Valley frosh Emily Wisniewski was the individual winner in 18:27.9.

Boys team

Hood River’s boys team just missed out on a trophy, finishing fifth with 152 points. Ironically, Wilsonville was fourth in the boys race with 142 points. Crater, led by the 1-2 finish of Tyrone Gorze and Josiah Tostenson, won the meet with 35 points.

Junior Elliot Hawley led the HRV boys in 11th place in 16:35. The other Eagle scoring runners were Jackson Bullock in 29th, William Bunch in 33rd, Jaime Rodriguez in 46th, and John Beckman in 50th. Kai Wagner was 63rd for the Eagles and teammate Davis Kerr was 70th. Rodriguez is the lone senior among HRV’s state meet boys runners.

Although they didn’t bring home a state-meet trophy, the Eagles did earn some redemption at state by edging Gorge rival The Dalles, which finished sixth. The Dalles had edged Hood River for the Intermountain Conference championship two weeks ago by one point.

“All of the boys ran really well,” Noteboom said. “We knew that the (IMC) meet in Pendleton, the district meet, we didn’t run our best race and so we just wanted to show that we could run better than that. And they did a great job.”

Of note: The Hood River Valley-Wilsonville matchup likely will take on new meaning next fall. HRV is slated to be a part of the 5A Northwest Oregon Conference starting next season — based on recommendations from an OSAA committee. Wilsonville is a member of the NOC, as is Putnam, which was sixth in the girls state meet. Hood River’s girls team has won a state meet trophy (first through fourth) for five successive meets. The Eagles won in 2018, were second in 2019 and 2017, and also fourth in 2016. No OSAA-sponsored state meet was held in 2020 because of COVID.