Hood River Valley’s girls varsity runners jostle for position with runners from Grant High (right) at the start of the Flat & Fast Invitational Friday in McMinnville. Grant won the team title, and HRV was fourth — to top 5A finisher among 11 scoring teams.
Hood River Valley’s girls varsity runners jostle for position with runners from Grant High (right) at the start of the Flat & Fast Invitational Friday in McMinnville. Grant won the team title, and HRV was fourth — to top 5A finisher among 11 scoring teams.
Gorge runners represented themselves well at Friday’s Fast & Flat Invitational cross country meet in McMinnville. Juan Diego Contreras of The Dalles was the individual boys winner in the 5,000-meter varsity race, and the Hood River Valley boys team was third overall among 16 scoring teams.
Contreras pulled away from Kyle Spencer of host McMinnville and won in a personal best 15 minutes, 36 seconds. The Dalles sophomore Leo Lemann was 11th overall (16:53), and he helped the Riverhawks to fourth place with 133 points. Lemann’s time was two seconds off his personal best set Sept. 18 at Oregon City.
“This was our first time going to McMinnville’s Flat & Fast Invitational, and I think we’ll be back in the future,” The Dalles Coach Jill Pearson said. “Out of our 24 runners that day, 14 had season records, with 10 all-time PRs. Juan Diego Contreras also came one second away from breaking The Dalles’ school record (15:35).
“Fiona Dunlop, Caitlin Frakes, Gabe Castillo, Caleb Caldwell, and Josef Lutz each had PRs of a minute or more — which is pretty rewarding.”
In the boys team race, Hood River Valley was third behind Class 6A schools Grant (71) and McMinnville (83) with 114 points. Junior Elliot Hawley again led the way for the Eagles, placing fourth overall in 16:13 — that was three seconds off his personal best set in the Division 2 race at the Sept. 25 Nike Portland XC.
The next four HRV runners all ran personal bests, led by sophomore Jackson Bullock’s 17:01 17th-place finish. William Bunch (24th, 17:29), Jaime Rodriguez (36th, 18:06) and Kai Wagner (45th, 18:28) rounded out the team scorers for the Eagles.
The Dalles boys had an equal amount of success as their Gorge rivals to the west. Frosh twin brothers Egan and Vincent Ziegenhagen were the third and fifth finishers for the Riverhawks in 38th and 49th place — each raced to personal bests. The Dalles No. 4 runner, senior Conor Blair, was 47th.
The boys team competition at the upcoming Intermountain Conference district meet (Oct. 27 in Pendleton) looks to be shaping up as another HRV-The Dalles showdown. The Dalles is closing the gap on the mid-season favorite Eagles, based on the season-best times. A hypothetical district meet between the two teams has HRV winning, 33-37. However, the gap was greater two weeks ago.
“The boys team is very determined — and pretty young,” Pearson said of the Riverhawks (and the same could be said of HRV). “We have a preview meet on that Pendleton course in two weeks, then district two weeks after that. Each week, Hood River swaps places with us in the rankings, so it really is anyone’s race at this point. Tough competition makes us both better.”
The performance in McMinnville by the Hood River Valley girls team did nothing to diminish its IMC favorite status. Junior Phoebe Wood led the Eagles to fourth place with her 11th-place finish. Wood and Ridgeview’s Morgan Shaw are expected to be the front-runners for the IMC girls individual title.
Five of the top six girls runners from The Dalles also PR’d, led by senior Caitie Wring, who was 18th in 21:04. Wring was part of a large pack of girls runners who placed 15th through 31st in a 22-second span. The group included Sophie Kaden (22nd, PR 21:09) and Alex Bronson (25th, 21:13) of HRV, and The Dalles frosh Alaina Casady, who lowered her personal best to 21:19 and placed 30th. HRV junior Olivia Nickson raced to personal best by 40 seconds in 21:45 to place 35th.
The Dalles will next compete Thursday at the Mustang Invite in Heppner (at Thompson Ranch). Hood River will race Friday at the 19-team Champoeg Invitational near Butteville.
Commented
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.