King, Smollack qualify for state cross country meet in Pasco

November 4, 2006 2:00 pm

Oak Harbor’s cross country teams have two representatives running in today’s Class 4A state meet at Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco, after qualifying at the district meet last Saturday in Langley.

At the district meet run on the 3.1 mile course at South Whidbey High School, the Oak Harbor boys placed fifth out of 13 teams and the girls came in ninth.

Individually, Kyle King will be making a return trip to the state meet thanks to a third place finish.

The Coupeville junior ran the event in a time of 15:54, shaving 19 seconds off his season-best time.

“Passing the first mile of the race, Kyle was in 14th place and then worked his way up to fifth,” Oak Harbor coach Eric Peterson said. “With less than a half-mile remaining, he flew past the fourth and third place runners.”

Last year, King ran a time of 16:20 to finish 14th at the district meet.

For the girls, junior Mietra Smollack crushed her personal best time by 48 seconds to finish 15th and qualify for the state meet.

“This is my first year running cross country and I’m excited about going to the state meet,” Smollack said. “I’m very happy and a little surprised, too. I PR’d by like a minute and I usually haven’t run that hard, but I just wanted to see if I could do it. My coach said he thought that I could run faster than I have been, and I did.”

“Mietra ran an incredible and very exciting race chasing down and passing two runners in the last half mile to make the qualifying 15,” Peterson said.

Other finishers for the Oak Harbor boys were Josh Dix, who despite being injured came in 27th in a time of 17:02, and Casey Green who ran his season’s best race to place 29th.

Other notables from the varsity boys included junior Alex Nydam with a personal-best time of 17:31 and freshman Michael Reith, who ran under 18 minutes for the first time this season, finishing with a time of 17:56.

Other varsity girls also ran well including included Megan Hall, who finished 28th in a time of 20:40, Lauren Wilson, 60th, at 22:26, and Michelle Sandstrom, who came in 70th with a time of 22:41.