Cross Country Roundup: Glacier Peak Girls win Hole in the Wall Invite

Published 9:39 pm Saturday, October 10, 2009

MARYSVILLE — Glacier Peak’s Amy-Eloise Neale continued her impressive running season with a first-place finish at the Hole in the Wall Invitational Saturday morning at Lakewood High School.

Neale out-paced Northwest’s Maddie Meyers, the Class 1A state champion last season, and Juanita’s Tansey Lystad with a meet-record time of 18 minutes, 22 seconds.

The meet-record run by Neale topped the four-year old record of 18:29.2, set by Paige Pattilo of Bothell.

“The couple girls that were right behind her (Neale) gave her a good run,” Lakewood co-head coach and meet organizer Jon Murray said.

The Glacier Peak girls squad easily won the team title with 32 points. Sehome came in second with 104 points and Arlington was a close third with 106 points.

Other area girls teams finishing were: Lakewood (seventh place), South Whidbey (11th place), Archbishop Murphy (12th place), Everett (14th place) and Lynnwood (16th place).

“Everytime we’ve seen them they’ve run very well,” Murray said of the Glacier Peak girls team.

Everett’s Chelsea Dowdell (19:07) finished in sixth place and Glacier Peak had runners place in ninth, 11th, 12th and 17th.

On the boys side Ingraham’s Abraham Berhe used a late kick in the last 200 meters to edge out Chris Borg of Peninsula by 1 second.

“It was a pretty exciting finish on the track,” Murray said. “The last 500 meters you could see it coming.”

Lakewood’s Taylor Guske (16:18) finished in third place and Archbishop Murphy’s Conner Ballew (16:33) came in seventh.

Peninsula won the overall boys title with 61 points. Glacier Peak led all area boys teams with a third-place finish (112). Other area teams were: Lakewood (fifth), Archbishop Murphy (seventh), Arlington (10th) and Granite Falls (16th).

Murray noted that the 3.1-mile race serves as the primary lead-up to many conference championship competitions.

“It (the course) was fast, it was dry, you got mostly grass and some gravel,” Murray said. “It’s a pretty neat course … a really great atmosphere.”

Hoquiam Invite: At Hoquiam, Kamiak’s girls cross country team won the invite with 42 points, besting Kelso, who finished with 76.. Mountlake Terrace finished in fifth place with 127 points. Kamiak’s Stephanie Moore won the individual championship in the 5,000 meter race with a time of 19:31.86. Kamiak’s Shelly Davis finished fifth (20:01.83) and Amber Hambrecht finished sixth (20:06.74). Nina Penner was the top finisher for Mountlake Terrace in eighth place (20:22.16). In the boys varsity race Mountlake Terrace finished third with 100 points and Kamiak finished fifth with 132. Hazen won the boys team title with 52 points. Bryton Reim finished in second place (16:19.74) and Ryan Bradford finished 11th (17:13.97) for Kamiak. Ben Miller finished 15th (17:24.83) and Michael O’Neill finished 16th (17:28.63) for Mountlake Terrace.

Quincy Invite: At Quincy, King’s girls cross country team took the team title with 37 points, knocking off its closest competitor Ephrata by 14. They had three girls finish in the top five of the 5,000 meter race led by Adele Eslinger, who finished third (20:33). Makenzie Taylor finished fourth (20:46) and Morgan Hamm finished fifth (20:49). King’s boys team finished in fifth place with 117 points. Selah took the boys title with a total of 49 points. King’s Harris Emmons finished in fourth place (17:18).

Kodiak Invitational: At Leavenworth, Cascade (Everett) took the boys team title with a total of 28 points in the 5,400 meter race. West Valley (Yakima) came in second with 52 points, Shorecrest was third with 58 and Mariner was fourth with 103. Cascade had five runners place in the top 10. Dylan Hopper won the race (18:16), Aaron Campbell finished second (18:33), Steven Statham finished seventh (19:27), Alex Bartee finished eighth (19:40) and Aaron Bartee finished 10th (19:56). Shorecrest had two top 10 finishers, Abiel Tekle finished third (18:55) and Carter Osborne finished fourth (18:58). Chris Venskus was the top Mariner finisher in 12th place (20:19). On the girls side, Shorecrest finished in second place with 39 points behind West Valley (Yakima), who finished with 21 points. Mariner finished in third place with 71 points. Shorecrest had three girls finish in the top 10 led by Danielle Lyons in fourth place (22:47), Hannah Greider finished fifth (23:08) and Lynleigh Oliver finished eighth (25:03). Cascade’s Aly Weir finished ninth (25:08) and Mariner’s Kylee Furness finished 10th (25:31).