Paige Rice of St. Mary’s Academy glided to victory in a state best time for the season of 9:55.77 at Oregon’s Hayward Field. Rice moved into the lead early and rolled through the first lap in 75.9. During the early action Rice was shadowed by Maggie Schmaedick of Sheldon & Catrina Allison. Rice recorded splits of 2:32, 3:50.9 & 5:09.9, as she took command of the race and then running laps of 79 to 82 she took a commanding lead. In the end she won in by almost ten seconds over Schmaedick, who ran a personal best.
Katrina Allison of B.C. placed third in 10:09 after challenging early and Ashley Windsor, also from BC, followed in fourth with 10:23. Megan Fristoe, Summit’s 5A State XC champion, ran 10:28 to claim fifth ahead of Adrienne Demaree of Jesuit, who ran 10:33. Alexia Martin of Kent Meridian earned seventh in 10:38 and Aviva Browning of Capital, Monica Anderson of Marist, Lindsay Wourms of Camas & Kelsi Klotter of Sheldon rounded out the top eleven.
Wolfgang Beck of Gig Harbor moved into the lead at six hundred meters after a first lap of 69 seconds. Although David Leavy of Jesuit, Eric Aldritt of Summit and Poli Balthazar argued over the action in the middle of the race, which witnessed a 1600 Meter time of 4:40 the final battle was between Beck and Dan Oekerman of Beaverton. The pair went back and forth a number of times but Beck surged with a lap to go but gave way to the final kick of Oekerman unleashed coming out of the final turn. The winning time was 8:41 for the Beaverton leader, which Beck followed in 8:42.
Timothy Delcourt of Kwantlen Park, BC, Poli Balthazar of Aberdeen, Eric Alldritt and David Leavy were all in the race until late and they were not all that far behind the leaders but Delcourt settled for third with 8:44 edging Baltazar, who was given the same time. Aldritt ran 8:45, which was good for fifth and David Leavy of Jesuit claimed 6th in 8:46. Jackson Darland of Sheldon battled Jamie Coughlin of Garfield for 7th with Darland garnering the mini-victory in 8:53 with a second to spare. Andrew Kaler of Camas placed 9th, while Alec Temple of Capital and Joseph Evers of Central Linn came in 10th & 11th respectively.
The girls’ Distance Medley saw Richland take an early lead and hold it through the first hand-off but brisk 2:16 by Paige Kouba gave South Eugene the upper hand. Erin Clark sealed the deal for the Axemen, who won in 12:03. Richland earned second with 2:12 and Summit claimed third with 12:26. St. George (BC) topped the men’s version with Summit taking second.
Haley Crouser, fresh off last weeks’ National Record at the Aloha Relays, competed against collegians today and won with a mark of 164-11. Also competing against collegiate athletes was Hannah Cunliffe competing for the Seattle Speed. Hannah placed fifth in her heat with a time of 24.46,
The boys’ High Jump for high school athletes was claimed by Kei-Jian Buckley of Liberty, who soared 6-09.50. Cole Smith of Hoquiam placed second with 6-08.25. Third went to Summit’s Bradley Laucbacher, who went 6-07.00, while Liam Henshaw of Marist took fourth with 6-04.