Bartlett pares away to win
No less than 30 high schools were represented Saturday at the Super 1/Farragut Invitational cross country meet at Farragut State Park.
But it was the battle between two girls from two of those schools that stole the show.
Coeur d’Alene senior Anna Stone led almost the entire “A” girls race on the 5,000-meter (3.2-mile) course set in the scenic hillside overlooking Lake Pend Oreille.
Almost.
In the final 30 yards, Sandpoint sophomore Megan Bartlett drew on the reserves she’s becoming known for and stormed past Stone to cross the finish line to win the race by 1 second at 19:46. Post Falls sophomore Angie Whalen finished third, 47 seconds back.
In the “A” boys race, Lake City freshman C.J. Helbling won his second race in as many weeks, crossing the finish line 4 seconds ahead of senior Max Reeder of Lakeside-Nine Mile Falls, Wash., in 17:08. Junior Kyle Johnson, also from Lakeside, finished third, 14 seconds off the pace.
In “B” boys action, junior Justin Rose of Colville took top honors at 17:03, finishing 10 seconds ahead of Medical Lake senior David Jacob and 41 seconds ahead of third-place Joey Ward, a junior out of Newport.
Bonners Ferry standout junior Melody Braden won the “B” girls division in 20:50, 3 seconds ahead of Liberty senior Andrea Collins and 26 seconds faster than Newport senior Terece Hahn.
Now back to the “A” girls.
As it turns out, Bartlett has earned a reputation for her late kick.
“She was leading for pretty much all of the race,” Bartlett, who won the Silverwood Invitational earlier in the season, said of Stone. “When we came out of the woods, I felt like I had something left and I thought, ‘OK, I might not win, but I’ll just go anyway,’ and I caught her.
“That’s usually my strength – I still have a sprint at the end.”
Stone said she was as surprised as everyone else by Bartlett’s flourish.
“I didn’t know she was there,” Stone said. “I was still pushing as hard as I could, actually, so I couldn’t have done anything even if I had known.
“And this is the best I’ve done as far as finishing just a couple of seconds behind Megan, and before I was like 16 or 17 seconds behind her – and I (ran a personal-best time) on this course today, so that was pretty good, too.”
“I just really had a good day today,” Helbling said. “I was feeling really good – I woke up energized.”
Lake City coming out on top – by narrow margins – in both the boys and girls “A” team competitions.
The Timberwolves boys put four in the top 10 and ended up with 37 points, four better than Lakeside and 30 ahead of third-place Coeur d’Alene.
The LC girls also had four in the top 10 and their 43 points were four better than second-place Sandpoint and 55 better than third-place Lakeside.
LC coach Justin Taylor said he couldn’t have been happier with his girls’ effort.
“I think we were the underdogs to Sandpoint coming in,” Taylor said. “So we knew we had a tough race coming in.
“We ran tough to get them – it was a real close race and it was fun to see our team up there like that.”
In “B” team competition, it was a Colville sweep. The Indians dominated on the boys’ side, finishing with 50 points, 60 ahead of St. George’s and 69 ahead of Pullman.
For the “B” girls, Colville scored 57, to narrowly beat Pullman with 68 and Deer Park with 71.