Championship Girls - A Title Drought Comes To An End
Very literally, girls were getting pushed out of their running lines in the middle of this race. The wind was near the peak of its fury as the championship race girls were snaking back and forth along the course's 3500 meters. Most of those 3500 meters put the competitors into a crosswind situation, but there were headwinds to deal with, too. And, there was the occasional tailwind.
For most of the 3500 meters, Erwin's Cadence Lapp was having her way with the field. Lapp looked every bit the experienced runner, managing her race well, keeping the pursuit at a safe distance, and seemingly cruising to the individual title. And, Lapp's physical strength kept her from getting tossed about on the course as much as a lot of her competitors.
In the last 500 meters, however, a different sort of ending came scratching its way to the surface. Engaged in a battle for fourth and seemingly impossibly far off the lead with 500 meters to go, Eagle Valley's Samantha Blair found the power boost button and took off like a rocket.
The wind had no fury to match Blair's finish. Blair picked off Brooke Wilson and Shayda Zarrin with relative ease. And, as the finish line came into view, Blair finished the deal and picked off Lapp as well.
Blair's winning time of 12:49 beat Lapp by three seconds. A lot of folks watched in stunned disbelief. Lapp, Zarrin, and Wilson might well have been among that crowd.
Before the top five was done, however, one team was already starting to nail down what would become a team title.
Summit Ridge's Eliana Thompson stopped the clock at 13:15. Elizabeth Fender, Josie Williams, and Eva Bennion collected 23, 24, and 25 team points, respectively. At that point, nobody else was close to Summit Ridge in the team scoring, but you could be forgiven for not noticing that. Uniforms seemed kind of an afterthought on this day as most athletes struggled to find some means of staying warm and the most readily available means were more layers.
Mia White finished the Summit Ridge scoring at 15:05, and--as it turned out, that was none too soon. Preston had done a lot of closing on Summit Ridge between Bennion and White. But, White's finish closed the Summit Ridge scoring at 124 points, still 15 ahead of Preston.
And, that title comes with some significance attached. A lot of folks are only marginally aware, at best, but Summit Ridge has been the driving force behind the middle school state meet for all seven years of the meet's history. They've been close a number of times, but this was the first time they left with the tallest trophy.
And, somewhere in the calm of his home, Mark Stenbeck is smiling.