Bright sun and pleasant temperatures greeted runners at Portland’s Fernhill Park yesterday.  The course, which is run in the same park as the Concordia Classic, is run very differently and it includes an early charge up the steepest portion of the hill, so comparisons in time would be misleading.   The overall impact is to make the course slower than that of the invitational but then to this runner every hill is a pleasant addition.     After the race the previous day in Vancouver it was great to see everyone toeing the line for the start of the girls’ race.

     Jesuit and Saint Mary’s Academy are two of the finest teams in the state, although South Eugene and Summit can not be left out of the equation, and as the girls stormed away, and they headed for the hill, they left little doubt about that fact.   By the time that they had run for just five minutes only Central Catholic’s Julia Stevenson was able to hang in the top ten.   The race appeared to be just a dual meet, although West Linn and Lake Oswego of the Three Rivers League were racing as well but such is the strength of the other two teams.

     Paige Rice of St. Mary’s took the lead early and did not let up, as she finished in a very fine time of 18:43.   Adrienne Demaree was forced to race essentially on her own, yet she ran a solid 19:07.  Olivia Artaiz was fortunate to have some company for a bit of the race but by the end she was alone in third and her final time was 19:45.    Megan Mullaney & Taylor Moscoe ran 20:03 and 20:04 to finish nearly together and wrap up a team victory over SMA.    Bella Gazzola of St. Mary’s claimed sixth in 20:22 to lead a small parade of her team mates, who added 7^th & 8^th for the team   

    Julia Stevenson of CC claimed ninth in 20:20, as she finished ahead of two more St. Mary’s runners.  Shay Vellaire placed 14^th to lead Lake Oswego, while Ellie Clow led West Linn in 18^th with a clocking of 21:26.   The team scoring saw Jesuit handle St. Mary’s 26 to 32 but there is plenty of time left in the season prior to state.  Still the first round went to the Crusaders.   West Linn placed a distant third.

     With the Central Catholic guys heading to California for the Palos Verdes Invitational, caution was the order of the day for the boys.  With that in mind the Rams ran a bit of a tempo run and went out conservatively.   Jesuit heads to Sunfair Saturday and, although the rumor is that they have some SAT issues, they only ran four runners.  With that in mind little should be interpreted from the scores in the male division.

    That said, the Crusaders did run their top two runners and Hunter McGuirk and David Leavy left no one to challenge them.   It was the junior McGuirk, who pulled ahead in mid-race and prevailed this day with a time of 16:08.  Leavy followed in second with 16:23.   Ram sophomore Kyle Thompson ran well behind in the early stages of the race but threaded his way up to third and a time of 16:40.   Nathan Normo of Lake Oswego followed right behind him with his time of 16:41.   West Linn’s Connor Cushman and Dillon George each added a second with their places of fifth and sixth, while Todd Macdonald of Lake O held seventh with 16:49.   Jared Bell of LO, Jackson Coleman of West Linn & Tyler Griffin, also from the Lions, rounded out the top ten.