Tired runners push at Palmer meet

FAIRBANKS — It would have been understandable had they been tired — the West Valley Wolfpack were doing their third 5-kilometer cross country race in eight days and Christi Schmitz of North Pole was racing that distance on back-to-back days.

Those facts made their accomplishments Saturday at the huge Palmer Invitational all the more remarkable. The Wolfpack boys finished second of 20 teams on the Janecek Trails course that also will be used for the Alaska state championships, while the girls took third among 18 squads in the 4A division. “I’m very happy,” West Valley coach Dan Callahan said.

He should be, because Werner Hoefler (fourth in 16 minutes, 29 seconds), Jacob Remington (13th in 17:11), Taylor Bearden (16th in 17:19), Sawyer Kisken (27th in 17:44) and Sean Solie (31st in 17:54) all set personal best cross country marks. Bearden, Kisken and Solie just became eligible to compete this week. “All of those guys got their PR’s. It’s very impressive because they had a hard week,” Callahan said.

Lathrop’s boys placed seventh and had four runners in the top 40. David Norris tallied 19th, Nathaniel Burrell was 30th, Pat Nugent took 33rd and Zach Ginn was 36th.

North Pole (16th place) was led by Josh Ray in 29th.

Perhaps the most notable performance, however, came from Schmitz, who took second on Friday at the ACS Invitational in Anchorage and then repeated that result against tougher 4A competition in Palmer.

Schmitz’s time of 19:27 trailed only Esther Kennedy of Service (19:10). “It’s really smart, the way she runs where she kind of moves up through people,” Callahan said, adding that Schmitz was back in about seventh place early on. With a fifth-place finish, Heather Edic of Lathrop helped the Malemutes girls to seventh place in the team standings. The only minor disappointment was that she came agonizingly close to breaking the 20-minute barrier, crossing in 20:00.44. “I really want to beat 20. As I was running in I just saw (the clock) counting down,” Edic said by cell phone on the bus ride home. “I was watching the clock. The last 10 feet I looked up and, oh man, it was close.”

Edic will have several more chances this season to break 20 minutes and improve on her seventh-place ranking on Lathrop’s all-time cross country list. Freshman Sydney Stone is now the second fastest frosh ever at Lathrop after taking 18th in 20:25. Just ahead of her in eighth on the all-time list is her mother, Marion (Johnson) Stone, who ran 20:22 as a Lathrop senior in 1982. West Valley’s girls took third place, paced by Kayla Teslow (12th), freshman Hannah Boyer (15th) and Malia Simpson (17th).

“Hannah’s new to running. She doesn’t know what she can do, so it’s pretty exciting,” Callahan said.

The Wolfpack also hope to improve further once junior Marisa Rorabaugh (27th) heals from an ankle injury.

The top local 3A boys results were Blake Hughes of Hutchison in 24th and Nick Best of Eielson in 25th. Eielson freshmen Micky Murtiff (29th) and Meg Byman (31st) paced the girls.