Karen Brewer separated from Stanwood’s Aliana Coburn in the final 400 meters for second place in the girls’ varsity race at Wenatchee.
Freshman Karen Brewer led the Liberty Bell High School delegation at the 29th annual Wenatchee Cross Country Invitational on Saturday with a second-place finish in the girls’ varsity 5-kilometer race. Brewer’s brother, Holden, led the Mountain Lion boys to a fourth-place in the team scoring with his 11th-place finish, two spots ahead of teammate Soren DeCuir.
The Wenatchee Invite features mostly larger schools from the 1A through 4A WIAA divisions. Only two of the 12 girls’ varsity teams, Liberty Bell and Brewster, were from the B classification. In the boys’ varsity race, Liberty Bell led the seven B class schools in a field of 18.
It was Brewer’s plan from the start to run her race and see where that might lead her, in her first high school 5K. She was aware of Eastmont freshman Lila Hamon, the eventual winner, and was eager to see if she could run with her. The pair had met two years ago at the Wenatchee Invite in seventh grade. Hamon was running for Cashmere back then and has since transferred to Eastmont.
Brewer cut the margin between her and Hamon down to 14 seconds on Saturday, and was seven seconds ahead of third-place finisher Aliana Coburn of Stanwood.
Hamon broke from the field, taking control at the start. Brewer settled in with a group of four runners in the first mile before she and Coburn broke from that pack.
Brewer kicked in another gear with about 400 meters to go and separated from Coburn to finish in 19:33.98 to Coburn’s 19:40.76. Hamon’s time was 19:19.81.
Lena DeCuir was Liberty Bell’s second across the line with an impressive12th-place finish in 20:54.32. Maren Sands and Nina Halpin ran to 25th and 27th, respectively, Zoie Dubowy came home in 32nd place and Sisu Clark placed 41st.
Handicapped by the loss of two key members, the girls called on sophomore Zoie Dubowy to fill the gap left by No. 2 varsity runner Alice Esmiol, who was sidelined by a sore hip. Senior captain Ingrid Venable was still feeling the effects of a lingering illness that forced her to withdraw from the race.
It was Dubowy’s first varsity experience and it produced her new 5K career mark.
Each of Liberty Bell’s six finishing runners placed in the top half of the 86-runner field, for a score of 94 points and third place behind 4A schools Moses Lake (54 points) and Eastmont (82 points). Cashmere and Medical Lake, both 1A schools, completed the top five. Brewster was the only other B school with a team, finishing11th out of the 12 scoring teams.
Brewer leads boys
Junior runners Holden Brewer (11th; 17:21) and Soren DeCuir (13th;17:23 ) led the boys to an impressive fourth place in the team standings. Eastmont’s Cade Hill was the eventual winner, and last year’s 2B state champion Waylon Stoneburg-Schafer (Cle Elum-Roslyn) finished in second place, 20 seconds behind Hill.
Brewer’s time of 17:21 is his second-fastest 5K time.
DeCuir ran a very steady race to his 13th position, visibly stepping up the pace in the final 800 meters and nearly catching both Brewer and Tonasket’s Owen Weddle. His time of 17:23 was just 8.5 seconds off his personal best on a 5K course.
Liberty Bell’s No. 3 runner, River Ferguson, started out strong but pulled up with what he described as a soreness in one of his legs and did not finish the race. Crispin Andersen stepped in to set a new 5K personal mark of 18:18.9, placing 27th. Freshman Thorsen Yahraes (18:35) placed 37th in his first 5K and senior captain Orlo Parkinson completed the scoring team in 50th place at 19:18. Junior Lucas Gatlin was the varsity No. 6 runner in 82nd place out of 120 runners.
“We had a really good day,” said assistant coach Becca Agnor of both teams. “They should feel good about where they are this early in the season. We had a number of PRs (personal records) set for the 5K distance.”
The future of the Mountain Lion program was also on display in the JV and middle school divisions, where four girls placed in the top 15 of a field of 45 runners. Of particular note was junior Madison Williams setting her new personal 5K mark at 23:22 in placing third in the girls’ JV race. Tova Slostad took seventh place (23:59) and Elsa Gutzler was next at eighth (24:46). Ava Burrington ran well in 13th place at 25:24. Bhavana Sabold crossed the line in 33rd place at 29:34.
Nine Mountain Lion middle schoolers scored top-10 places in the three middle school 1.55-mile races. Sixth-grader Georgie Hall was the lone Mountain Lion runner and champion in a field of 45 runners. Marseil Kelley took second place in the boys’ sixth-grade division. The seventh-grade boys’ race saw two Mountain Lions in the top four, Dylan Sands running second and Wiley Carr fourth.
Seventh-grade girls Amalie Jaffe and Neva Clark ran to fifth and sixth places, respectively, while the eighth-grade boys race saw Ethan Miller take second, Charlie Halpin third and Clay Frady sixth.
Most of the Mountain Lion high school harriers take this weekend off from interscholastic competition with the exception of the Brewer family. Both Karen and Holden plan to run in the Bob Firman Invitational in Spokane Valley this Saturday. Karen has been seeded into the girls’ elite division, an all-class race. Holden will run in the varsity boys’ race.
The Firman will feature top runners from Utah, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, California, Washington and Naperville, Illinois, for this race.
The middle school Mountain Lions ran this Wednesday (Sept. 23) at Tonasket and next run on Sept. 30 at Omak’s Stampede Grounds.
The Mountain Lions next run as a team on Saturday, Oct. 3, at the first of two westside Nike sponsored events, the Twilight.
