Girls
Washington 102, Oregon 111
Katie Leary 16:01

| Results | Story by Leo Collins | Photo Album |

Leary finishes

Leary and O'Reilly lead in the Japanese garden

Katie Leary breaks away late

by Leo Collins

The Nike Campus in Beaverton , Oregon was the sight of the 5 th annual Border Clash between the boys and girls from the states of Oregon and Washington . The girls' race, which started first, appeared to be a wide-open event with Washington 4A state champion Brie Felnagle given the nod as a slight favorite. The race is unique in that, rather than a mass start with opposing runners lining up together, representatives from each state face each other lining up on opposite sides of a soccer field in the middle of the Nike campus. The race then starts with the blast of a canon, which is placed in between the opposing lines. With the blast of the canon the girls raced towards each other over a distance of around 50 meters before turning at the field's mid-point and racing off the field to the outside boundary of Nikeland.

In the little time that it took to race half the soccer field Oregon runners had shown that they were quite serious as three of their girls assumed the lead. Katie Leary, the Oregon 4A champion, (along with Danielle Jordan and Briana Anderson-Gregg) was probably the key as she appeared to be controlling the pace. The race continued as such for the first ½ mile but Washington's Felnagle made a move shortly thereafter and assumed a share the lead about 10 meters in front of the chase pack. By the time the runners had reached the pond and near the mile mark Megan O'Reilly of Washington moved up to challenge for the lead.

The leaders made their way through the midst of the campus and then out to the perimeter of the compound without much change: sometimes one or the other might take a slight lead but it was quickly covered. It remained thus until around the 2 mile mark—the only change at all being an increase in the lead over the chase pack to around 20 meters.

Tracing the perimeter of the campus the 3 reached a slight rise at about the 10 minute mark where Klamath Falls ' Leary made a modest surge to take a clear lead of about 3 meters. Washington 's Felnagle and O-Reilly gamely held on afterwards as Oregon 's Leary, who appears to be fast improving with each race, continued to push the pace while the Washington pair attempted to remain in contact.

Returning to the soccer field Katie Leary continued to push and increased the lead, which she had slowly built and then somewhat stunningly pulled away. By race's end the Oregon runner had almost a ½ minute cushion over Brie Felnagle in 2 nd . Meghan Armstrong, who at one time trailed far behind, threaded her way through the pack to finish 3 rd ahead of Washington 's O'Reilly.

The evenly matched teams allowed much speculation over the final team result as Danielle Jordan of Oregon gained 5 th ahead of Stephanie Lenihan of Washington . Oregon runners placed 7 and 8 th thanks to the effort of Holli Dieu and Briana Anderson-Gregg but Washington runners led by Isley Gonzalez took places 9-12 to seal a 102-111 victory.

The winner Katie Leary seemed to still have a good deal left in reserve. It bodes well for the Footlocker meet as at least three or four of the chase runners could qualify for the national meet in San Diego .

Results

BorderClash

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