Outlaws show progress in Silver Falls races

The Outlaws cross country teams traveled to Oregon’s largest state park for the final meet of September last Thursday, September 29, at Silver Falls State Park. They showed that they are rounding into racing form entering the second half of the season.

The varsity girls team ran as a pack in the initial mile of the race before stretching out a bit over the hilly course that features a nearly mile- long ascent in the middle of the course. Jena Rickards and Kaitlin McAlister ended up in fourth (21:17) and fifth (21:25) places respectively with their best times of the year. Ryanne Conrads finished eleventh (23:04), Chelsea Addison eighteenth (24:18) and Erin Kanzig nineteenth (24:28).

Sisters was 17 points behind The Dalles-Wahtonka with 57 points to finish second. Stayton was third with 74 points and Gladstone finished fourth with 106.

The junior varsity girls finished second as a team thanks to the sixth-place finish of first year runner Maren Burck.

“The girls are running well and look forward to the return of key team members who are nursing injuries,” said Coach Charlie Kanzig. “We have yet to run a meet at full strength, but we are making significant progress nonetheless.”

The boys, though missing two varsity runners due to illness and injury, had a breakthrough day in the varsity race. Freshman Benton Urquhart nearly cracked the 18 minute barrier with a time of 18:03 and Kyle Rickards also had a personal best of 18:16. Dan Purvis (18:46) and Justin Lefor (18:57) also ran their best times of the year. Cory Bigelow was the fifth scorer for the Outlaws in 19:03.

Jared Swehosky of Stayton won the race in 15:59.

The team finished fifth with 109 points. The Dalles-Wahtonka won the meet with 40 points, West Salem (4A) had 89, Taft 94, Regis 109 (tiebreaker), Sisters 109, Gladstone 153, Scio 170 and Stayton 174

Jeff Prine and Jared Henderson led a sweep of Outlaws runners between 11th and 18th place to lead the junior varsity boys to second place.

“The boys are beginning to group together well and I am very pleased with their work ethic,” said Kanzig.

The teams head to Philomath Saturday, October 8 for the Paul Mariman Invitational, which features most of the top 3A teams in the state.