Wilsonville Invitational

WILSONVILLE INVITATIONAL
9 SEPTEMBER, 2006
WILSONVILLE MEMORIAL PARK

Apparently the jinx is over. Through. Finished.

Over the last few years the Ram harriers have developed a rather unwanted tradition of starting the season with a resounding whimper. Sure, there was always a good reason – hard training cycle, illness, injury, up all night with a sick cat, etc. – but the bottom line was that we simply did not run well. Given that we’re heading to Boise for a fairly important effort on September 23rd, we thought it might be a good idea to get our “stinker” race out of the way at Wilsonville. Alas, the fellas weren’t paying attention to the plan as they ran an excellent team race, notching a relatively easy win over, among others, state-ranked #5 Lincoln HS.

The Wilsonville meet is unique in that there are not separate races at the varsity and junior varsity levels. As we are a very deep team with a mix of veteran and novice athletes, this format was a perfect fit for our group. The course at Wilsonville’s Memorial Park consists of two identical loops; the first half of the loop is on fairly rough grass but is open and allows for movement while the second half runs through a forested area where passing is very difficult.

Our top group had orders to run just outside the top 10 for the first loop while the remainder of the team was encouraged to run conservatively over the first half of the race before making a concerted effort to “race people” over the second half.

As the leaders entered the woods at ¾ of a mile, our top nine runners occupied positions 11-19 with most of our remaining runners running comfortably. Upon exiting the woods and returning to the open area, five Rams – and one Lakeridge Pacer – became the lead pack. JOEL TURKHEIMER led back into the woods at a mile to go, with ZACH MARX, KEVIN O’MALLEY, SAMOT TURINA, TAYLOR MORGAN, and Lakeridge’s Dave Marks bunched right behind him. A little further back NICK TURNER was laboring a bit in an effort to run down Lincoln’s top two runners, Matt Parker and Joe Carpenter.

In the woods Morgan asserted himself and ran away from the group for his first individual high school cross country victory. Morgan’s time of 16:47 was over 20 seconds better than the previous year’s course record by Stayton’s Terrance Swehosky – but only three seconds up on the winner of the morning’s Open division race*.

Also bettering Swehosky’s mark in 2nd place was super-soph Samot Turina in 16:58. After a somewhat slow start to his summer training, Samot has quickly returned to the form that made him Oregon’s best frosh and National Junior Olympic XC runner-up last fall. Lincoln’s Parker made a fine run to move into 3rd, just ahead of senior Kevin O’Malley. O’Malley’s 17:08 was only 25 seconds from his junior year best, set on a course considerably less difficult. Junior Joel Turkheimer (17:14) made a fine debut for the Rams in 6th – also edged over the last half mile by Lincoln’s Carpenter. Lakeridge’s Marks held on for 7th and was followed across the line by resurgent Nick Turner (17:22) and Zach Marx (17:24) in 8th and 9th.

With six runners in the top nine, the Rams had the victory well in hand, but there were many other fine performances on this day. There were 216 finishers overall and the boys from CC had eleven in the top 40 – without Wiltshire, Wotipka, and Ahmed. It was a very good opening to the season.

There were other notable performances as well. Senior TAYLOR BERGMANN (17:46) ran to13th, easily the finest varsity level effort of his Ram career. Only eight places behind came junior AUSTIN JONES (18:16) in his first ever cross country race. Austin ran track as a soph and has already shown tremendous ability and potential over hill and dale. Trailing closely were our two senior Davids: BELTRAMO (18:23) finished 29th, having just returned from a hip injury while LANEY (18:25) was 31st, after suffering a nasty fall entering the woods with the pack on the first go round. In 38th sophomore CONOR ROLAND-CHICVARA (18:34) showed that he, too, will be a force with which to be reckoned as he acquires more experience in the sport. Freshman PETER SLAUSON (18:42) also had a fine debut only five places behind Conor; Slauson has improved tremendously over the summer and will be a very good varsity runner in the not-too-distant future. His All Saints teammate CURRAN CARLILE (19:24) was the next to cross the line for the Stark Streeters, in 69th place, with junior AARON PECORA (19:25) only a place removed. Pecora’s improvement over two years has been phenomenal, and there is no reason to believe that he’s finished on that upward path.

Another four Ram men finished in the top 50% of the field with CONOR CAMPBELL (20:00), EVERETT STILLEY (20:01), GABE LATHROP (20:33), and MATT HOLMES (20:37) in 86th, 87th, 105th, and 106th. Campbell and Holmes are sophomores while Lathrop and Stilley are members of this exciting freshman class. All but Campbell were running their first 5000m cross country races.

Three others made their debut, and all performed admirably: junior JIM McCOLLUM (21:11) was 123rd and clearly enjoyed himself on the course; soph TIM BAUMAN (24:49) continues to improve everyday and finished 196th; freshman CASEY MINNICK (26:47) was 206th after out-kicking seven athletes in the last 400m. Casey has only been running with the team for a week and will no doubt improve with experience; even so, his competitive zeal was noticeable to many onlookers on this day.

Other accounts of the meet can be found at: http://www.dyestat.com/?pg=reg7or060909wilsonvilleinvite(Dyestat’s Dave Devine) and http://www.youthrunner.com/npps/story.cfm?id=556 (Youth Runner’s Leo Collins).

We’ll head to Boise for the Bob Firman Invite this weekend (Sept 23) and will bookend that trip with Wednesday efforts at Barlow (Sept 20) and Lents Park (Sept 27). Hope to see you somewhere along the way!