You peak, you podium.
The Columbia High School girls cross country team proved that adage correct last Thursday, when all seven Bruin varsity runners ran personal bests enroute to the first District IV team championship in school history.
Columbia, led by fifth-place finisher Ella Zimmerman, scored 51 team points, to best defending champion Seton Catholic by 11 points at Lewis River Golf Course in Woodland.
Coach Michael Hannigan’s runners followed up their Trico League championship on Oct. 21 in Vancouver with an even better performance at district. The long-time coach said he has never had a team have all seven of its varsity runners set personal bests in the same district race.
“To me it was the highlight of the whole meet,” Hannigan said. “To see all the girls PR, I was just really pleased. … Out of all the things that happened at that meet that was, by far and away, the best outcome.
“The guys have won quite a few times, but the girls this was their first (district title). And they were pretty pumped about it.”
The Bruin runners were not aware that they could rewrite school history before the 5,000-meter race. But once they had the traveling trophy in hand, they realized Columbia was not one of the schools etched in as a prior champion.
“It’s a rotating trophy and so it has all the names of the prior winners on it going back 20-plus years, and Columbia is not on there at all until now,” Hannigan explained.
Next up for Columbia is the Class 1A WIAA state meet, Saturday, Nov. 5 at Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco, WA. The Class 1A girls race is at 10:30 a.m. and the boys race at noon.
It will be the third trip to state for Zimmerman, who was 37th a year ago. The senior ran a 17-second lifetime best of 20 minutes, 17 seconds to pace Columbia at district. Zimmerman’s season best had been 21:31, prior to district.
“She’s been our team captain now for three years,” Hannigan said. “After the whole COVID fiasco, she really stepped up as a leader her sophomore year. She pulled those girls along with her all the way until now and I’m just really proud of her for everything she’s done.”
The list of season and personal records continued throughout the seven-runner varsity lineup. No. 2 runner, sophomore Raina McAllister was eighth in 21:40, a 73-second personal best and two and half minutes faster than her second-best 5,000 time this fall. No. 3 runner, sophomore Damarys Alvarez, was 13th in 22:37 – a more than two-minute improvement on her previous season and personal best.
Junior Leah Swanson, who ran a lifetime best the last time she raced in September, rejoined the Bruin lineup last week and was 18th in 23:10 – a PR by more than a minute. The other scoring Bruin (top five finishers on each team) was junior Grace Bjelland-Lathim, who finished 25th in 24:33 – also a PR by more than a minute.
Columbia’s No. 6 and 7 runners – frosh Reyna Pinchot and junior Caitlin Frakes – were 28th and 44th respectively. Pinchot ran the 5,000 meters in 24:47, a 22-second improvement of her personal best she set last week at the Trico meet. Frakes cut 28 seconds off her lifetime best with her 27:45 effort. Sophomore Nina Hartmann and junior Lynette Black will join their Bruin teammates at the state meet.
District girls team runner-up Seton Catholic was led by junior Alexis Leone, who won her third individual title in 17:52. Leone won the 1A state championship in 2021 and was second as a frosh in 2020.
Columbia’s boys were fourth as a team and led by senior Camden Uffelman’s fifth-place finish (17:24). The Bruins just missed out on a berth to the state meet, as the top three scoring teams at district qualified. Uffelman will compete as an individual at state, as the top 21 finishing boys and girls at district advance to run at Pasco. He will be joined by sophomore teammate Noah Slayton who was 12th in 17:45 – a personal best by a half minute. This will be Uffelman’s third trip to the finals; he was 46th there a year ago.
Other scorers for Columbia boys at district were Garrett Koch and Calvin Andrews, who were 33rd and 34th, and Benjamin Borton, who was 37th. Also competing for the Bruins were Cole Wooding (39th) and Henry Wilson (42nd). Borton lowered his personal best by 42 seconds and Wooding dropped five seconds off of his.
Seton Catholic, led by individual champion Sam Soto, won the boys district crown with 40 points. Columbia scored 110 for fourth.
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