LAKEWOOD — Kyle Tupper of Port Angeles captured fourth place for the top North Olympic Peninsula performance at the West Central District cross country championships at American Lake Golf Course on Saturday.
Joining Tupper at state will be the Port Angeles girls and Sequim boys teams as well as three runners from Port Townsend.
Brittany Grant of Port Townsend was the top girls runner from the area at the Westside Classic with a 12th-place finish and will go to state along with fellow Port Townsend boys runners Ryan Clarke and Xavier Frank.
Tupper, the top male performer from the Olympic League, finished fourth out of 88 2A runners with a time of 16 minutes, 51.6 seconds on the 5,000-meter course.
Lindbergh’s Mohamud Abdi won the 2A boys race in 16:19.4.
The Sequim boys claimed fourth place (top six teams to state) for a ticket to state with Peter Ohnstad, Adrian Clifford, Mikey Cobb and C.J. Daniels finishing in the top 25 for the Wolves.
The top 30 individuals qualify for state in 2A boys, so the top four Sequim runners would have gone to state on their own.
Ohnstad led the Wolves by taking 18th place in 17:14.6, followed by Clifford, 20th in 17:22.9, Cobb, 24th in 17:29.1, 25, CJ Daniels 25th in 17:29.7.
Other finishers for Sequim were Chris Jefko, 45th in 18:15.0, Dylan Chatters, 46th in 18:15.7 and Jackson Oliver, 48th in 18:18.9.
Just missing qualifying for the boys was Peter Butler of Port Angeles, who finished in 33rd place in 17:53.7.
Sumner won the 2A boys race with 83 points while Sequim had 114th for fourth place.
The Port Angeles, girls, meanwhile, captured fifth place in 2A with a team score of 113 to grab the final state berth for girls.
Fellow Olympic League team North Kitsap, ranked No. 2 in state, dominated the girls meet by taking first with a score of 46. The Vikings took three of the top four places as Reagan Colyer was champion in 19:10.9.
Sophomore Dusti Lucas was the top Roughrider as she claimed 22nd in 21:18.6.
The Riders had five girls finish in the top 31.
Lucas was followed by Annika Pederson, 24th in 21:26.0, Elizabeth Stevenson, 25th in 21:30.8, Willow Suess, 28th in 21:49.7, DashaPorter, 31st in 21:54.5.
Also finishing for Port Angeles were Bailey Reader, 44th in 22:34.5, and Jolene Millsap, 47th in 22:44.4.
Sequim’s Emily Webb and Siana Turner finished in the top 40 but just missed state berths because the cutoff for individual girls was the top 25.
Webb took 33rd while Turner finished 39th.
Port Townsend, meanwhile, had three runners with outstanding performances in the 1A races.
Grant claimed 12th place in 20:15.2 for a state berth.
On the boys side, Clarke, just a sophomore,took 15th place in 17:16.4 while Frank was 19th in 17:22.1 out of 140 runners.
The top 25 1A boys qualified for the state meet.
Charles Wright Academy won the boys race with a score of 101 while Meridian won the girls meet with 106.
The state championships for all levels is scheduled for Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco this Saturday.
