The Oak Harbor High School cross country team ran to an impressive 2010 debut Saturday, Sept. 11, at the Sehome Invitational at Bellingham’s Civic Stadium.
Oak Harbor finished second out of 22 teams in the girls race and seventh in the boys race.
Sehome, the defending 2A state champions, edged Oak Harbor 28-30 for the girls title. Seattle Prep captured the boys race with 41 points; Oak Harbor finished with 88, the best of the four Wesco 3A schools that competed.
The meet divided runners into races by their graduating class, and Oak Harbor had at least one participant place in the top 10 in all but one of eight two-mile races.
Scoring for the meet was based upon six placers: the best in each classification and then the next top two regardless of grade.
The best individual Wildcat performance was produced by Adrianna Royal who placed second (12:43.25) in the senior girls race which was won by Amia Nash of Edmonds-Woodway (12:24.12). Oak Harbor’s Allison Duvenez was sixth (13:06.55).
In the junior girls race, newcomer Hannah Bressler was sixth (13:12.9), Taylor Von Grey 13th (13:53) and Heather Dale 20th (14:24).
Oak Harbor’s Christina Wicker was seventh (12:56.93) in the sophomore race, and Alexandra Laiblin (13:24) and Olivia Meyer (13:36) went 3-5 in the freshman girls race.
The Wildcat boys were led by junior Matt Reith who finished fourth (10:52.3), less then five seconds out of first.
John Kaltenbach was 10th (11:18.09) in the sophomore boys race, and Caley Powers was third (11:10.06) in the freshman race.
Other boys who put in strong showings according to coach Eric Peterson were seniors Mike Kincy (29th, 11:51) and Nate Miller (37th, 12:14), junior Thomas Honeycutt (37th, 12:19) and sophomore Wyatt Homola (18th, 11:54).
Peterson said, “Both teams ran really well for this early in the season and show a lot of potential.”
Coupeville’s Tyler King, one of the state’s top runners, did not compete. Peterson said, “He’s planning on competing in a number of races following his high school season (Borderclash and Footlocker Championships) so we’re keeping him out of the early races to build a bigger base for his training.”
The Wildcats and Kamiak go to Everett Thursday, Sept. 16, at 3:45 p.m. for their next meet. Saturday the varsity journeys to Seaside, Ore., for the Three Course Challenge.
