The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

The Sisters boys and girls cross country teams got a close-up view of many of the best 3A teams in Oregon this week at the Marist Invitational on Thursday and the Molalla Invitational on Saturday.

Sisters joined the eight teams of the powerhouse Sky-Em League, along with North Bend, Sherwood and Crook County on Pre’s Trail in Eugene on September 15 for the Marist Invitational.

Among girls teams, Siuslaw, North Bend and Marist are currently ranked one-two-three in the state and Sherwood is sixth. Individual state champion Holly Dieu of Coquille was also present, making the field extraordinarily competitive.

Jena Rickards and Kaitlin McAlister stuck together for most of the race, finishing 18th (17:00.8) and 24th (17:18) to pace the Outlaws on the 4,000-meter (2.48 miles) course. Ryanne Conrads (46th) Chelsea Addison (52nd) and Deirdre Kelleher (53rd) completed the scoring for Sisters which finished sixth among the 10 complete teams.

Marist won the meet with 58 points based on the sixth- place tie breaker over North Bend. Siuslaw finished third, Sherwood fourth and Pleasant Hill fifth.

On the boys’ side the Outlaws faced top-ranked Siuslaw, fifth-ranked Marist, sixth-ranked Elmira and seventh-ranked Sherwood.

Running without senior captain Jeff O’Brien and number-two runner Lucas Glick, who were nursing injuries, the Outlaws placed eighth among 11 complete teams.

Freshman Benton Urquhart led the team with his 37th-place finish (15:11). Justin Lefor (51st), Cory Bigelow (53rd), Kyle Rickards (54th) and Dan Purvis (55th) packed together to round out the team scoring.

Marist ran away with the team title with just 39 points over second place Siuslaw (104) and third place Cottage Grove (105).

“It was a beautiful fall day to run and we got a good look at some very strong runners, which was eye-opening for our relatively young team,” said coach Charlie Kanzig.

Saturday’s race at Molalla again included top-notch competition. In addition to Siuslaw and Marist, Scappoose, Astoria and Estacada brought ranked teams to the meet.

Coach Kanzig ran most of his young runners in the junior varsity meet in order to give them true racing experience.

“I have a lot of freshman and sophomore boys and girls who are capable of varsity competition, but I wanted to let them have the chance to experience racing from the front of the pack,” he said.

The strategy seemed to work very well as Ryanne Conrads (14:05) and Deirdre Kelleher (14:05.4) dashed to a 1-2 finish in the girls race, just ahead of fourth-place finisher Erin Kanzig (14:19). Lani Ulmer (14:38) also cracked the top 10, finishing 7th and Jamie Kemp finished 16th, giving the team just 30 points and the first place trophy.

The result was similar for the junior varsity boys as Benton Urquhart placed fifth (11:27) and Dan Purvis eighth (11:55) in helping the team to a second-place team finish with 78 points. Varsity girls runners Jena Rickards (21:33), Kaitlin McAlister 22:05) and Chelsea Addison (23:56) all ran their best 5-kilometer times.

Lucas Glick ran an all-time best (18:36) in the boys race. Cory Bigelow (19:03) and Justin Lefor (19:37) also competed in the varsity race.