Harriers both notch wins at Corvallis Invitational
Hungry Horse News
The Columbia Falls girls cross country team won the Corvallis Invitational last week, edging the Blue Devils by one point.
The boys also won as well, but beat host Corvallis by 10 points.
The meet featured teams the Wildcats will likely have to beat at the state A meet in Missoula in a few weeks if they want to bring home some hardware this season, and they proved they can match up with just about any class A school.
The girls were led by Mya Badger, who took second with a 20:46.05 while the boys were led by River Blazejewski who took fifth with a 17:46.41.
“We were excited to get our first meet win of the year against talented programs. It’s a little challenging to judge how our teams are going to continue to match up because we were without two of our top five runners this week, and Corvallis and Hamilton were each missing one of their best runners,” coach Jim Peacock said of the girls race.
“Mya, Marissa Schaeffer, and Cora Hannan put themselves in solid contact with the front of the race early, and continued to work through the field. Mya finished second behind Plain’s sophomore, Marina Tulloch, who is ranked as the No. 1 runner in Class B right now. Marissa and Cora finished fifth and sixth respectively, running together much of the race.
“Junior Claire Bates, who is new to the sport, is learning a little more about racing every week and ran extremely well to finish 25th. Chloe Williams paced her teammate Hazel Alexander for the race and they finished 27th and 29th. This was Hazel’s first varsity experience, and she took full advantage of it,“ Peacock said.
On the boys’ side, Peacock was also impressed.
“They have competitive personalities, and they were motivated to race. All seven boys finished within approximately the top third of the field. River Blazejewski led the group with fifth place. In rapid succession, Oliver Kress and Hoot Peterson crossed behind him in ninth and 10th, and then Griffin LaRoque and Cash Short in 14th and 15th.
“Having only 59 seconds separating our five scoring runners makes for a really good team scoring opportunity, especially when they cluster that close to the front of the race. Mason Colliander was our sixth man again this week, and his 24th place finish was outstanding. Brayden Swope ran his first varsity race of the year, and he ran confidently. He placed 28th,” Peacock noted.
He also noted their depth.
“Depth is one of the boys’ biggest strengths this season, and we have a number of varsity-caliber boys that are running on the JV team each week (you can only race seven boys in varsity). That makes it very worth noting that the JV boys dominated the JV competition. It was a little like having two varsity teams at the meet.”
The JV boys had six of the top ten places, and if those boys ran in the varsity race, most of them would have finished in the top half of the field. Jack Phelps, Aiyers Powell, and Eric Miner finished first, second, and third. Brock Swope and Stimson Dolesh were sixth and seventh, and Miles Colliander was ninth. This race was as exciting to watch as the varsity races,” Peacock said. Next meet for the team is Saturday in Thompson Falls at River’s Bend Golf Course.