Austin King (Bristol Bay, 19:24) tops high school boys, and Kara Andrew (New Stuyahok, 24:15) takes first in high school girls bracket on a sunny Saturday in Dillingham.
KDLG: On Saturday the Wolverines hosted the Dillingham Cross Country Invitational, with the boys from Bristol Bay taking first as a team. Dillingham took second. New Stuyahok, Manokotak, and the Kuskokwim Learning Academy fielded runners, but none with the five runners necessary to compete as a team. In the girls bracket, no team had the five necessary runners to post a team score. (See all results below.)
There were many spectators and plenty of helping hands on what proved to be a beautiful day to race. Dillingham coach Mike Halko was proud to unveil a new course to the competition.
“It’s a tough course," he said, adding that he was impressed anybody broke the twenty minute mark. "They leave the school, go along that soccer field, make a right on Central, down to 1st Avenue to the seawall. They take that hill at the end, we call that the Big Monster. Then they run back to Central, back to the High School, make a dip down to the ball field. Then up the grassy hill behind the old courthouse, then they do the entire loop again. So they get three significant hills in the course. It’s not a gimme.”
In the high school boys bracket, four runners did break twenty minutes. Austin King (Bristol Bay) took first, Cole Dull (Dillingham) second, Rheti Jackson (KLA) third, Conner Romer (Bristol Bay) fourth, and Logan Phelps (Bristol Bay) fifth.
In the high school girls race, New Stuyahok Eagle Kara Andrew took first, followed six seconds behind by Dillingham’s Hannah Berkoski in second. Dakota Johnson (Bristol Bay) took third, Sharon Hansen (Bristol Bay) fourth, and Henrietta Nicholai (KLA) fifth.
Cross country seasons are short, and with leaner budgets, there are fewer traveling meets, and fewer runners will go to state this year. Coach Halko has been impressed at the progress Wolverine runners are making this season. Many of the runners beat their time trials from a week ago by a minute to a minute and a half at Saturday's meet, which was the first competitive race for most Wolverines this season.
"It shows they dug it out," he said. Now runners have seen the competition that stands between them and a state berth, and Halko said they have their targets to aim for in the next two weeks.
"We go out to New Stuyahok this weekend to run the infamous Gully. Then the following, on the 24th, I’d like to see the whole town come out and cheer on the Wolverines at regions," he said.
The top five runners at regions will go to the state tournament the following week, a change from past years when the top runners from each school could compete.
Reach the author at dave@kdlg.org or 907-842-5281.
