Rebmann, Brosch Run To Victory

It may have been too early to truly call the meet a league championship, but the Plantes Ferry Park cross country course produced a mixture of successes guaranteed to satisfy both sides of the Border League.

Individually, Colville’s Cory Rebmann defended his boys title after Sandpoint freshman Ali Brosch won her debut, both in record times.

Team winners during the Border League cross country championships were West Valley’s young boys team and the Post Falls girls.

Next up for many of the Washington runners is Saturday’s Highlander Invitational which begins at 9:30 a.m. at Shadle Park.

Boys: The one-two punch of Rebmann and teammate Michael Greenman repeated their first- and second-place finishes of the year before. Rebmann ran 16:29, 26 seconds faster, while Greenman improved his time by more than a minute to 16:48.

Also like last year, Colville finished second in the team standings.

“It was not really important,” said Rebmann of his team’s 74-85 loss.

“We just wanted to go out and do a good workout. We’re more looking forward to Saturday when you race in high, high competition at the Highlander.”

Rebmann, fifth in last year’s Washington State 3A meet, would like a top-three finish and a spot in the senior race’s all-time top 20.

“I’ve been training pretty good this summer,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Colville had three runners among the top 11 during the race, but West Valley, whose top three finishers were sophomores, placed its five scorers between fifth and 20th.

“That’s the kind of team we are,” said Eagles coach Jim McLachlan. “We’re getting close to having a lead runner, but we’re going to be a pack group.”

Girls: Sandpoint freshman Brosch was so unfamiliar with cross country that she thought the boys and girls competed together.

“At first, I thought I’d be racing against the boys in one big mosh pit of a race,” she said after winning for the second time in five days.

Saturday, Brosch ran a race at Liberty Lake County Park and set a freshman record of 20:00 while winning by 45 seconds.

There was no need to worry about close-quarter moshing at Plante’s Ferry. After a mile, Brosch began to pull away and won by 40 seconds.

“My strategy is to just have them hang with me until they tire out and drop back,” Brosch said.

Post Falls coach Sue Lauer was delighted by the performance of her team, which edged Clarkston 83 to 85, with West Valley and Coeur d’Alene tied at 96 points each.

Clutter surged past WV’s Molly Colefor second place, and teammates Carrie Paulitz and Candace McEnespy were seventh and eighth.