Racing against themselves

The toughest battles the Central Valley Bears girls cross country team faced this season, week in and week out, were the one to determine just who would run on the team’s varsity and who would compete with the junior varsity.

The Bears, ranked No. 6 in the most recent state poll, are among the pre-race favorites at today’s state Class 4A high school championships in Pasco. And they have a squad good enough to compete for a spot on the awards podium watching from the sidelines.

The Central Valley junior varsity, on the same September weekend the varsity ran in the Bob Firman Invitational in Boise, placed second at the Wenatchee Invitational running as a second CV varsity unit.

“For some reason, the state polls didn’t recognize our running at Bob Firman,” CV senior Jenna Peterson laughed. “We’re ranked sixth in the state based on how our JV ran.”

Second only to host Wenatchee, the Bears placed seven runners among the first 23 to cross the finish line, led by junior Ari Rios and senior Camille Carter, who each finished amongst the top 10. In Boise, the team placed 11th in the prestigious, elite race, right on the heels of defending Class 4A champion Gig Harbor.

“We were all on the phone after the race, calling back and forth to see how our teammates had done down there,” Carter said. “It was pretty cool to be able to split up like that and still do well.”

This weekend, three runners from that Wenatchee trip, Rios, Carter and Peterson, ran their way onto the squad that runs today in Pasco. Junior Eden Lake, the team’s No. 1 runner most of the season, freshman Madi Barnes, junior Breanna Barsten and fresman Josie Warner round out the state entry.

Lake, Barsten, Rios and Carter are state meet veterans.

“This is such a deep team,” Carter said. “It’s true – some of the hardest races we’ve had are the ones to see who runs on the varsity each week. That’s something most teams don’t have – that kind of depth. It’s been really good for us because it means we all have to keep working hard and improving. We push each other hard during the week and in the end, it makes us all better.

“The team that’s going to state is a good mix. We have three juniors, two seniors and two freshmen. That’s a good balance.”

Central Valley coach Dennis McGuire and the team decided that the team’s GSL meet with Mt. Spokane would determine which seven runners would make the trip to state.

It turned out that one race wasn’t enough to sort out the pack.

“When we ran that race, there were four runners all within a couple seconds for the seventh spot,” Peterson said. “We had to run a whole other race just to sort it out.

“I know there are a bunch of disappointed runners. You can’t go out there and give a race everything you have like that and not be disappointed when you don’t make it. But at the same time, I know they’ll all be pulling for us at state. They’re the ones who pushed us to get here, and I think we can all share that satisfaction.”

Peterson is particularly compassionate for two runners who did not crack the state lineup.

“Four of the runners all battling for those last couple spots were seniors,” she said. “You don’t stick around for four years with a cross country program without feeling really invested in it.”

Senior Melinda Miller, a state competitor a year ago, just missed a return trip. Also missing out was Carter’s twin sister, Brittany.

“My sister played soccer her first three years here,” she said. “She came out for cross country this year, and it was really special to me that we were able to run together this year.”

The Bears, who completed the league season undefeated, won the Class 4A Eastern Regional despite battling colds and the flu as much as the rest of the combined Greater Spokane and Columbia Basin leagues. After a week of throat lozenges and cold remedies, the team is healthy and ready to run at state.

And ready to erase the team’s one nagging memory from a year ago.

McGuire has called last year’s state race “the worst race we ran all year.”

“I still don’t know exactly what happened or why,” Carter said. “Something tripped us, and three or four of us went down at the state, and I think that really threw our whole race off. We didn’t run a very good race after that.”

Peterson watched last season, including that agonizing start. She suffered a stress fracture to her tibia during the track season of her sophomore year that wasn’t diagnosed until summer. By that time, she was told to shelve last year’s cross country season.

“It was hard to stand by and watch last year,” she said. “It made me want to get there this year that much more.”

“I think we’re ready to go in and do well at state,” Carter said. “The state course is an ideal course for us, and I think we’ve gotten over all those pre-race nerves from last year. We’re ready to run.”