PASCO — Many North Olympic Peninsula runners head into Saturday’s cross country state championships with high hopes.
The Sequim boys are hoping for the Class 2A team state championship.
“We’ll either be really happy or really disappointed,” Wolves coach Harold Huff said Thursday.
“I think it’s a two-horse race. I think we’ve separated ourselves from the other ranked teams.”
The other horse Huff is referring to is two-time defending state champion Sehome.
“It’s going to have a lot to do with whose guys are running the best,” Huff said.
In what is a mostly individual sport, the Wolves’ strength is their pack.
“I don’t have, like some teams, one or two runners that you know are going to be in the top four or five,” Huff said.
“But I’ve got six guys that can be just behind those top runners.”
And out of those top six runners — Mikey Cobb, C.J. Daniels, Brendan Despain, Chris Jeffko, Peter Ohnstad and Jackson Oliver — Huff said he never knows who will lead the pack and have the best finish.
The seventh runner at state, Wendall Lorenzen, has made strides this season.
Whomever finishes sixth at state could end up being as important as the other five Saturday.
The top five count for the team score, and in case of a tie, the team with the highest-finishing sixth runner wins the championship.
Sequim placed fifth at last year’s state meet and spent the offseason training together to improve.
“They worked hard and they worked all summer,” Huff said.
“And that’s the reason we’re where we are. Nobody outworked us.”
And the Wolves appear to be peaking at the perfect time.
Four of the seven — Despain, Ohnstad, Jeffko and Lorenzen — ran their top times at last week’s Westside Classic in what Huff called “breakout races.”
“It was far and away their best race of the year,” Huff said.
Port Angeles has two runners competing in the boys 2A race, Peter Butler and Simon Shindler, both seniors and veterans of the state meet.
In the 2A girls race, Port Angeles freshman Gracie Long leads a mix of experience and youth to state.
The Roughriders placed fifth at last week’s Westside Classic to qualify as a team for the second consecutive year.
Long, who won the district title, will be joined by Annika Pederson, Willow Suess, Lael Butler, Madelyn Dougherty, Kendal Jacobson and Astrid Schick.
Waverly Shreffler, a first-year cross country runner, will be Sequim’s lone representative at state after placing eighth at districts.
Shreffler is the second-ranked runner on the Peninsula, behind Long.
Class 1A
Top 10 finishes by Ryan Clarke and Brennan LaBrie helped the Port Townsend boys win the team district title and qualify as a team for state.
Clarke won the individual district championship and placed fifth at state last year.
Joining Clarke and LaBrie will be Mark Streett, Jack Kingsley, Sean Dwyer, Alejandro Montanez and River Yearian.
Alan Ensastegui is Forks’ lone state qualifier and will be making his second trip to state.
The Forks girls qualified as a team thanks to the top 20 finishes by Tristen Williams, Kari Larson and Brooke Peterson at the District 4 meet.
Larson will compete at state for the fourth time and Peterson is going for the second straight year.
Amber Hoagland, Marissa Baily, Jessica Olivera and Rosalia Flores also will run for the Spartans.
For the Port Townsend girls, Hanna Trailer is the lone representative.
Class 1B
Crescent’s Martin Waldrip is the area’s only qualifier for the 1B/2B meet.
He finished fourth at the district meet last week.
