The boys had their best ever team performance at the Bellevue invite this year. We placed 5th overall and were the 2nd 3A team behind Seattle Prep. We beat out #5 ranked Bellevue, #7 ranked Mercer Island, #9 ranked Hazen and #10 ranked West Valley.
The course this year was an actual 5km; last year’s course was short because of the parasailing taking place off the beach.
The JV boys started off the day with a strong performance and every runner PRed. David Rice led the way with a PR of 18:24. Ryan Kellberg, who was feeling sick, ran a strong time of 18:40. Billy Doyle and Eddie Ramsey followed with 18:56 and 18:59, both breaking 19 minutes for the first time. Erik Fisher had a huge race, PRing by over a minute to break 20 minutes for the first time, running 19:44. The boys JV placed 9th overall, beating out the Hazen JV which took 10th.
Andy Dean and James Turnbull started the varsity boys team off with its best ever 7,8 flights. Andy Dean placed 4th to earn a ribbon and T-shirt in a time of 17:39. James Turnbull went through the mile in about 20th place and by the finish had moved himself up to 13th. He ran a 26 second PR and was a key factor in our team scoring. These two blew the Bellevue, Mercer Island and Hazen runners away.
Ranvir Sahota and Tor Ferguson followed suit in the 5,6 runner flight placing 12 th and 14th. Ranvir ran a PR and Tor was really close. With both placing in the top 15 we had a feeling we were going to beat some top schools.
In the following heat, Chris Miland and Mike Williams went out in a more conservative pace, going through the mile in 5:23 and coming through around 45th place. Chris and Mike placed 32nd and 33rd in their flight. Mike’s time was a PR.
Sam and Javier ran in our 1-2 flight. Sam had us nervous at the mile mark as he came through in about 10th place – he had it all under control though. He nailed his mile split at 4:56, dead on his race plan. Javier dug down deep and decided today was his day to prove something. His first mile was 5:09, but he went out hard and to compete. He wasn’t going to let the main pack and most importantly the Hazen runners go. He fought hard through the next mile to maintain pace. Sam meanwhile had moved up into 4th place but was around 60 meters behind the Eisenhower duo out in front. By the last 600 meters Sam had moved into 3rd place and closed the gap to about 40 meters and had pulled away from the rest of the field including defending state champion, Brian Govier. Javier was struggling coming in but was doing his best to stay strong for the team. Going into the sprint Sam had almost caught up with the Eisenhower duo and finished in 15:38, his 5K PR. Javier came in 47th place with a PR of 17:12.
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