Mccall Stands Tall In Sandpoint Invitational A-3 Powerhouse Wins Girls Title; Lake City Prevails Over Boys Field

Considering that every A-1 school in North Idaho was entered in the Sandpoint Invitational cross country meet at Hidden Lakes Golf Course, the obvious favorite had to be McCall High School with an enrollment of 350 students.

To the unknowing eye, that might look like a misprint, but the defending A-3 champions showed off the power that exists at high altitude by putting all five of its scoring runners in the top 20 to easily run away with the girls title. The boys crown was captured by the tight-pack running of Lake City.

The individual girls winner was sophomore Brooke Murphy of McCall, who blazed across the flat course in 20:12. Murphy was almost 40 seconds ahead of sophomore Aree Stone, who was the only St. Maries runner in the girls race.

“I got out to a good start and pushed myself so the other runners had to catch me,” Murphy said.

The Vandals were in the race only because of a scheduling mix-up that originally had them racing at the Faragut Invitational this week, which is really next week.

“We prepared for Faragut by running hills this week, so when we found out we were a week off on the scheduling we decided to come race here anyway,” Vandal coach Jerry Randolph said.

The Inland Empire League A-1 schools got their first chance to compete against each other in a scoring meet and were glad to see how they measured up before regionals.

“I’m glad we finally got a chance to compete against the rest of the schools in our region and see how we measure up in a scoring meet,” Lake City coach Donna Messenger said. “I think our boys team ran real well and had great teamwork.”

The Timberwolves packed together and won despite not having a runner in the top five. Messenger said she told her team to run together until the last half-mile and was pleased the pack was so fast.

The winner of the boys race was sophomore David Larime of Libby, Mont., in 17:06. He ran with Aron Taylor of Lewiston High School for most of the race before running away on a downhill just past the halfway point.

“We were talking to each other early on in the race and I wasn’t sure how fast he was, so I took off going down the hill and he never caught me,” Larime said.

Taylor enjoys running hilly courses more than flat and said he is ready for Faragut.

“I wanted to prove that I’m the top runner in North Idaho, and now that I’ve done that I’m shooting for a top-three finish at state,” Taylor said.

McCall was the talk of the meet, and seemed to catch everyone by surprise. Randolph said he was happy to give his runners a chance against stiff competition and felt his girls team’s performance bodes well for the future.

“We’re a very young team and a lot of our girls our producing right now so it should be a good year,” Randolf said.

The silver lining for the A-1 teams is that they won’t face McCall at regional or state this year.

, DataTimes