Although they were missing several of their top runners, the Liberty Bell High School cross country teams ran in the Nike Hole In The Wall Invitational on Saturday at Lakewood High School near Arlington.
Both the boys’ and girls’ varsity teams ran in the “Varsity Gold” division of the event where Liberty Bell, Freeman and Cle Elum-Roslyn were the only B schools in the respective fields.
By far the largest meet the local high school will compete in, the Hole In The Wall consisted of 13 different races with 3,827 individual entries. Races were broken into heats according to experience and ability.
The boys’ team was lacking No. 2 runner Soren Decuir. The girls were missing three of their top five scoring runners in Alice Esmiol, Lena DeCuir and Maren Sands.
The Mountain Lion boys finished 38th in the 47-team field and were led by junior Holden Brewer in 26th place individually. They were 15th among teams with a full roster of five to seven runners. The girls fell to 18th in the 18-team “Varsity Gold” field, consisting mostly of 3A and 4A schools entering their top runners for this meet.
The girls were still without last year’s No. 1 runner Alice Esmiol. Esmiol did run Saturday, but it was in the Girls’ JV Silver division, touring the course in a respectable and encouraging 21:13.5, good for fourth place. If she had run in the Girls’ Varsity race, her time would have placed her behind Ingrid Venable and in front of Nina Halpin in the No. 3 team slot. A sore hip kept her sidelined and unable to practice until a couple of weeks ago.
There was good news from the Liberty Bell camp as freshman Karen Brewer led the way for the Mountain Lion girls with a third-place finish in the Girls’ Varsity Gold Division, covering the 5 kilometers in 18:20.7 for a new personal best. She also was the equal of Eastmont’s Lila Hamon, who ran an identical time in the Women’s Elite division. Brewer placed second to Hamon at the Wenatchee Invitational back in mid-September.
Personal records for the girls were set by Madie Williams, Nina Halpin and Bhavana Sabold in the JV race. Sisu Clark, Sutherland Stokes and Zoie Dubowy each took noticeable time off of their previous personal marks, as well.
Holden Brewer ran very well, leading the Mountain Lion boys with a time of 16:08.5, just under two seconds off his personal mark of 16:06.6 set two weeks ago at the Bob Firman Invitational in the Spokane Valley. River Ferguson, Crispin Andersen and Liam Gutzler all turned in personal best efforts in the varsity race, and team captain Orlo Parkinson eclipsed 17 seconds off his previous best. Lucas Gatlin, Quin Smith, Silas Papadopoulos and Oscar McDonald-Moore ran in the JV Silver division.
Coach Liam Daily was impressed with the steady improvement shown across the board over the past two weeks.
“The team was exceptional!” wrote Daily in his weekly email update. “There were lots of personal bests and season bests as Liberty Bell athletes put themselves out there and ran hard.”
Pack running is a strategy that the Mountain Lions have employed with success. Running together and pulling each other along is an emphasis for Daily.
“It was so exciting to watch teammates push each other up the long hill,” he said. “It was clear that our runners were intentionally attacking the climbs, moving around and past other racers, then letting it fly on the downhill!”
The Central Washington B League championships are on Oct. 24, District 5/6 Championships Oct. 31, and the state championships on Nov. 7.
Liberty Bell again hosts the league championships, this year at Bear Creek Golf Course. The first race begins at 1:30 p.m. and will feature several races.
Everybody moves along to the district championships, location and format yet to be decided. Teams and individuals from that race will qualify for the state championship meet in Pasco.
