Record falls at Portland cross-country meet

Zoe Falk produced the best cross-country race of her high school career on her way to shattering the Sisters High School record for 5,000 meters as she placed second in the invitational section of the Adidas Classic held at Fernhill Park in Portland on Saturday, October 13.

Falk went out with the leaders and held third place through 4,500 meters before pulling away to nab the runner-up spot behind defending 4A cross-country champion Alisha Luna of Klamath Falls. Falk's time of 19:05.9 broke her own school record by nearly 17 seconds.

The remainder of the Outlaws' team, which is ranked fifth in the latest 4A poll, also ran at or near season bests helping the squad finish sixth among 33 complete teams.

"Zoe had a breakthrough and so did the rest of the team, which should give us momentum as we approach district and state in the next three weeks," said Coach Charlie Kanzig.

Macadia Calavan ran nearly 90 seconds faster than ever before to place 29th (20:47), while teammates Natalie Marshall (21:24), Maddi Boettner (21:32), and Katie Stewart (21:42) bunched nicely to round out the scoring. Mary Stewart finished in 22:32 as the sixth runner and Aria Blumm had to withdraw due to a sore ankle.

Klamath Union won the meet with 55 points to easily outdistance defending 4A champion Scappoose (125). Sisters finished with 227 points for sixth place.

"The girls still have some hurdles to overcome to be where they want to be, but I'd say they took a huge step forward this weekend," said Kanzig.

The boys' team also showed improvement, finishing 13th among 34 teams, falling just short of the team goal to place first among the 4A teams in the race.

"Our team is young and developing week by week, so we knew it would be a stretch to be the top 4A team, but we came very close," said Kanzig.

Phoenix finished ninth overall as the top 4A team with 308 points, followed by Scappoose with 331, while Sisters totaled 363. Crater (6A) won the meet with 88 points.

Brandon Pollard again paced the Outlaws, nearly cracking 17 minutes by finishing 21st in 17:00.4. Devon Calvin dropped his time down to 17:31 and was followed by Izaak Kanzig (18:01), Ian Baldessari (18:06), Gabe Rice (18:43), Shea Krevi (19:13) and Kyle Van Krieken (19:39).

"Brandon is a fine runner who is still waiting to pop a great race, which I know is a bit frustrating to him, but to be honest, I am happy with his progress and believe the best is yet to come for him this season," said Kanzig.

Kanzig got a pleasant surprise that will certainly help the team in the upcoming meets as Dyut Fetrow won the junior varsity race in 17:58.8, smashing his personal best.

"I wanted Dyut to have another experience of front-running because he sometimes gets lost in the big crowds of runners when he runs varsity, and it worked out perfectly for him," said Kanzig. "Had he been in the varsity race running that time, we would have finished eighth overall and first among all the 4A teams in our race."

The Adidas Classic also featured an elite division, which included most of the top-ranked large schools in Oregon and parts of Washington. In all, more 80 teams competed in the meet, making it one of the largest meets in the Northwest.

The Outlaws were scheduled to compete Wednesday, October 17 at the Country Fair Classic in Veneta which is the last regular season meet before the Sky-Em District meet set for Thursday, October 24.