Alexa Efraimson
Portland’s Pier Park offered a battle between Alexa Efraimson of Camas and Sara Tsai of South Eugene. Both young runners turned in solid early season times but the Camas Comet secured the victory with a time of 18:01. Tsai came in alone in second with a 18:14 clocking. With Camas, Jesuit and South Eugene in the mix it was a loaded field but Gracie Tostenson of Crater secured third with a mark of 18:33. Dylan Hite of Jesuit came up big for the Crusaders by garnering fourth with a time of 18:41.
South Eugene runners Erin Clark (18:48) & Phacelia Cramer (19:03) but Jesuit answered in the team battle as Ellie Kallgren (19:15) and Megan Mullaney earned seventh & eighth respectively. Camas runners Alissa Pudlitzke (19:16) and Maddie Woodson (19:30) put Camas back in contention but a quartet of Jesuit runners put the race out of reach by sweeping the next four places, as Taylor Moscoe, Lindsay Schaeffer, Zani Moore & Nicole McCollough crossed the finish line. The end results saw Jesuit come away with a 42 to 46 victory over South Eugene & Camas placed third with 54. It’s early in the season but the race has to be quite encouraging to the Crusader fans.
Defending 6A Oregon champion Kyle Thompson of Central Catholic led the guys with a solid time of 16:03 and was followed by Reilly Bloomer of the Axemen, who ran 16:09. Andrew Kaler of Camas took third with 16:12 but then Jesuit secured the next three placements as Sam Remington (16:14), Alex Joseph (16:20) & Matt Piercy (16:23) paraded across the finish line. Dante Dalla Gasperina of the Rams followed with a seventh place effort before Crater’s first runner, John Martinez, finished eighth. Josh Sealand of Jesuit came in ninth & Sam Lomax of the Rams rounded out the top ten. Patrick Doherty of Jesuit completed the Crusader scoring with his eleventh place effort, which gave Jesuit an unbeatable low of 35 points. It was a somewhat surprisingly strong effort for the Crusaders, who looked quite sharp, while the Rams were not quite on their usual game. That said CC has a very young team, which depends on freshmen & sophomores so some inconsistency. We would caution to read too much into the results beyond the impressive racing of Jesuit, which will compete in the Northwest Classic next weekend.