Alexandria Cross of Tualatin & Emily Weber began the new 2011 season in a similar fashion to the way they ended last year’s State meet with Cross earning a narrow victory. Last fall Cross & Weber finished 14th & 20th respectively in the 6A division and on Wednesday at Tualatin High School Alexandria
earned the victory by a margin of four seconds over her rival. The time of 12:48 is somewhat meaningless, as it was run over a distance of 3,400 meters but with the extremely hot conditions, it made sense to use caution, so early in the season. Rebecca Anna of Southwest Christian won her individual duel with Vivian Hawkinson of South Salem and Erin Gregoire of Beaverton with her time of 13:40. Kellen Friedrich of South Salem clocked 13:59 to take sixth and was followed by West Linn’s Julia Boyd-Helm, who garnered seventh. Jenna Hills of SW, Shae Vallaire of Lake Oswego & Leah Henningsen of West Linn rounded out the top ten, while Lion runner Ellie Clow followed in eleventh.
South Salem the five-time champion of the Valley District easily won the team battle among the girls with a low score of 39 points. West Linn claimed second with a total of 74 while Sherwood placed third with 99. The boys’ team results saw Lake Oswego secure the victory with a low of 20 points, while Beaverton edged top the host team by a margin of 82 – 83 to take second.
The individual race among the guys went right down to the wire, as both Nick Obletz of Oregon Episcopal School & Mohammed Hussein of Beaverton were both credited with a time of 10:34.00 with the OES runner getting the decision. Obletz had finished ninth last year in the 3A division, while Hussein showed vast improvement over last season’s form. Hussein finished 47th at State last year. Dan Oekerman, eighth at State in 2010, earned third with 10:47 & was followed by Nathan Nomo of Lake Oswego. Zachariah Roth of West Albany claimed fifth in 10:54 and was followed by Nathan Love of Tualatin. Lake Oswego runners Phillip Kearns & Todd Macdonald placed 7th & 8th respectively and Nick Martin of Southwest Christian took ninth. West Linn runners Dillon George & Tyler Griffin garnered tenth & eleventh. Scott Allred of Tualatin ran 11:28 to take twelfth to best Kevin Kavanaugh of Beaverton, who shared the same time. Kavanaugh, who placed ninth at State in 2010, was well off his form on the hot day.