PASCO — Five was definitely the magic number for Olympic Peninsula cross-country runners at the 1A and 2A State Championships held Saturday.
Both the East Jefferson and Port Angeles boys teams finished fifth in the 1A and 2A races respectively, while individually, East Jefferson’s Max Allworth-Miles and Aliyah Yearian both finished fifth in the state. Sequim’s Riley Pyeatt also finished fifth in the state.
Port Angeles boys
With two runners in the top 16 and three in the top 50, the Port Angeles cross-country boys had a solid race at the 2A State Championships, finishing fifth in the state.
The Roughriders had 155 team points, well ahead of sixth-place West Valley’s (Spokane) 198. Lower scores are better in cross country, much like golf. Squalicum won the state championship with 77 points.
The Roughriders were led by Jack Gladfelter with a 10th-place finish in a time of 16 minutes, 27.3 seconds. The winning time was by Cooper Quigley of Selah at 15:38.3.
Not far behind Gladfelter was teammate Maxwell Baeder, who came in 16th with a time of 16:50.3.
Joshua Gavin finished 49th (17:26.0) while Naaman McGuffey was 80th (17:51.9), Langdon Larson 86th (17:58.8), Jason Gladfelter 112th 18:19.7 and Kowen Kasten 161st (20:17.1). There were a total of 166 runners in the race.
East Jefferson boys
East Jefferson had a similar race to Port Angeles, with two boys in the top 14 runners and three in the top 30.
The 1A race was fairly close at the top. East Jefferson had 161 team points, not that far behind the 11 points by Lakeside (Nine Mile). In fact, nine teams in the 1A classification had under 200 points.
Allworth-Miles finished with a time of 16:38.2, just eking out sixth-place runner Andrew Luce at 16:39.8 to get into the top five. The winning time was by Jamar Distel of Riverside in 15:00.4.
East Jefferson’s Sebastian Manza finished in 14th place (17:18.9). Glen Dawson finished 30th (17:43.9) and Soare Johnson was 42nd (17:52.6) for four solid team finishes. Mark Anderson was 145th (19:46.6), Indigo Gould as 157th (20:40.2) and Aidan Nichols was 159th (22:30.9).
Sequim girls
Sequim’s Riley Pyeatt finished fifth in the state in the girls 2A cross-country championships.
Pyeatt finished with a time of 18:50.0, one of only five girls under 19 minutes. The winning time was 17:58.7 by Jessica Frydenlund of Anacortes.
Pyeatt’s teammate Kaitlyn Bloomenrader also had a good race, finishing 20th with a time of 20:01.8. She had the fifth-best time at the race among freshmen and sophomores. Sequim didn’t have enough runners for a team score. The top girls 2A team in the state was Sehome with 64 points, just edging out Anacortes with 65.
East Jefferson girls
The East Jefferson girls team finished eighth at the 1A race, with Aliyah Yearian finishing fifth in the state in a time of 19:24.3, one of only 13 girls to finish under 20 minutes.
All of the East Jefferson girls finished in the top 86. There were 124 girls in the race.
Camryn Hines was 31st (20:55.6), Lia Poore 78th (22:25.1), Tadu Dollarhide 79th (22:25.7) Fiona Fraser 85th (22:43.9) and Sylvia Butterfield 86th (22:48.9).
East Jefferson had 162 team points. The 1A girls winning team was Seton Catholic with 52 points.
