Boys EliteWith a mile to go in the Boys Elite race at Saturday’s Adidas Classic, Central Catholic OR sophomore
Musa Ahmed was hanging in a lead trio with Franklin OR senior
Bryce Burgess and Palmer, Alaska’s
Jake Parisien, tearing through a two mile split of 10:07 and looking strong.
He just wasn’t feeling strong.
“I didn’t really come in prepared today,” he said after the race. “Ramadan is over today, and I’m a Muslim, so I’ve been fasting at home every day.”
The month-long religious observance, which started September 13th and calls for Muslims to rise at five o’clock every morning, eat a small meal, and then fast until 7 in the evening, left Ahmed fifteen pounds lighter than he started the month. The final day of Ramadan is meant as a day of celebration, and Ahmed made sure there were two reasons for rejoicing. His fifth place finish helped lead his NW#3-ranked
Central Catholic team to the title over cross-town rivals NW#6
Jesuit OR and a NW#1-ranked, but undermanned,
Crater OR squad.
“We had a lot of good competition today,” Ahmed said. “Jesuit was out here, so we got a little pumped up, and the team ran great, I think. Coach said go out there and have fun with it, so we did. Went out and did the best we could.”
“Coach,” otherwise known as Central Catholic mentor Dave Frank, was certainly pleased with the effort, but also with the way his team has coalesced this season. “These guys really just enjoy being with each other. They have a good time, which makes it a lot of fun.”
Frank had another reason to take heart, as his senior leader and defending state cross country champ
Taylor Morgan made another step back from a minor abdominal strain with a strong 6th place performance, storming home past multiple runners in the closing meters to finish two seconds behind Ahmed in 6th. Both Central Catholic runners fronted
Peter Maag (7th) and
Brian Manning (8th), the lead pair from rival Jesuit. Central Catholic then packed five into the top 20 to score a 59-94 victory over Jesuit. Finishing third was an up-and-coming
North Medford OR team, with 163 points. Crater, running only two of their normal top five, finished a distant 11th.
In the individual competition, just as Ahmed was starting to falter, Bryce Burgess was gaining strength, blowing open a three-man race just after the two mile mark with a blistering 4:55 final mile. In his wake he left Ahmed, who faded to fifth, and Parisien, who hung as close as he could and rallied for second (15:45.4) over North Medford OR’s Josh Paul (15:49.7). Burgess was well-clear of both, ripping a 15:27.9 winner which he said was his first hard effort of the season.
“My asset right now is my strength,” he said, referring to his string of 70-mile weeks and repeat miles in five-flat or faster. As someone who typically relies on his strong finishing kick, the negative split on the third mile was actually not his initial plan. “It was kind of Plan B, actually. I was just going to go with my normal race plan, which is just kick on everybody with 1000 or 800 meters to go. But my coach told me that I’m really strong right now, so if I felt good I should go whenever. So I took the lead, and then with a mile left I felt like it was time to go.”
Burgess, who trained with the Central Catholic team in a series of summer workouts detailed here, considers the Rams to be both rivals and friends. “This year I’ve really gotten to know those guys,” he said. “We consider ourselves good friends with those guys now, teamwise.”
It’s a sentiment Ahmed echoed as he started to cool down with his own victorious team. “Bryce? He’s our buddy. He had a very good move out there, a bold move, and he held it, so good for him. We always say, if anybody’s going to win, we want it to be Bryce or us.”
On this particular Saturday, it was both.
Girls EliteThe
Jesuit OR girls entered the Adidas Classic having been ranked #1 in the Northwest for weeks, but newly elevated to #10 in the US in the latest Harrier Magazine poll. The performance they laid down on the rolling course at Fernhill Park left little doubt the accolades were well-deserved. Jesuit managed 6 runners in the top 13 of the 24-team field, for a low score of 32 and a 62-point win over NW bubble team Crater OR.
Adrienne McGuirk and
Noelle VanRysselberghe led the way with nearly identical times of 18:00.4 and 18:00.8, both tantalizingly close to breaking the 18-minute barrier. McGuirk had already soared well under the mark earlier this season, but VanRysselberghe was gunning to make her inaugural trip south of 18 on a 5k layout.
“I’ve wanted to go under eighteen for a really long time,” she said after the race, “and I think I just missed it, which is really disappointing.”
Indeed the official results confirmed that she and McGuirk both were a few ticks shy of the goal, but their 1-2 punch up front was more than enough to seal up an impressive team victory over runner-up
Crater OR, who finished with 94 points to Jesuit's 32.
“We don’t really think of it as leading the team,” VanRysselberghe said later, “because we’re all out there working hard and doing the same workouts. It’s a team effort.”
McGuirk said the team hadn’t received any special instructions from Coach Tom Rothenberger. “We usually just try to run our own race as a team. Today, he didn’t give us anyone to look out for, just times we were supposed to run, and we tried to stick to those.” She and VanRysselberghe made a commitment to work together as they drew clear of the pack with splits of 5:41 and 11:32. “Usually our coach says to stay together until the last kilometer, and then you can go, but yeah, we worked together the whole time.”
The only separation came in the closing meters of the race, on the track straightaway. There, McGuirk shifted to a final gear that created some daylight between herself and VanRysselberghe. Behind them, Payton Schutte (7th), Claire Hagler (10th), Shannon Mahoney (12th), Elizabeth Murphy (13th) and Maria Salazar (26th) were creating a cascade of Crusaders that left little doubt concerning the outcome of the race.
Clearly poised to defend as 6A state champions in Oregon, this is a team with serious aspirations to compete in a national meet in their own backyard. It’s a meet they felt somewhat slighted to be left out of last year, and despite being ranked #1 in the region, they’re excited to have the opportunity to race their way into the Nike Team Nationals this season.
“We’re really excited that NTN’s went to regional meets as opposed to rankings,” VanRysselberghe said, drawing an approving nod from McGuirk, “because it’s not really subjective anymore. We get to go out there and fight for it ourselves.”
If the Crusaders run with the confidence they displayed at the Adidas Classic, it’s a fight not too many teams stand a chance to win.
Girls Invitational RaceKris Thomasberg of Redmond OR has been racing fellow Oregonian
Michelly Foley of Crook County for most of their high school careers. The two, who race in the same region, have traded wins back and forth over the years, but Foley has been getting the best of Thomasberg of late. Which is why Thomasberg was so happy to come away with the narrow 19:17.1 to 19:20.0 victory in the Adidas Classic girls Invitational race.
“I was a lot quicker as a sophomore than I am now,” Thomasberg said after the race. “I was consistently up there and [Foley] was a bit behind me, but this year has been the complete opposite. So this race, it was really good to finally get back there in front of her.”
The rivals hung close for three loops of the course before Thomasberg kicked away as they neared the track for the final time. “I was pretty confident in my kick,” she said, “so I figured I’d wait as long as I could, and then just kick it in. It happened about 160 meters from the finish, so it was perfect timing for me.”
In the team competition,
La Center WA used strong finishes up front from
Tamara Kulla (10th) and
Meagan Governor (13th) to narrowly defeat a
Sprague OR team which placed all seven runners in before La Center’s fifth, but still went down, 127-133.
Boys Invitational RaceIn last year’s boys’ Invitational division,
Bend OR junior Wes Cheney unleashed a furious kick on Madison OR senior Chris McConnell to pull off a narrow win and score a big PR of 15:51.0. This season, Cheney is injured and unable to compete for Bend, but his teammate
Scott Gage upheld the legacy by again coming away with the individual win, and grabbing a PR in the process. Gage did it from the front, however, using a 4:56 opening mile to gap the field for good en route to a 16:19.3 victory.
“I just tried to go out for an early lead,” he said afterward. “Get a fast first mile.” There was no problem, he said, going it alone on the rolling course. “I’ve gotten used to it, pushing myself on my own.”
Gage’s Bend teammates—minus Cheney—were working hard behind him, but is wasn’t enough against a
Sheldon OR squad that packed its first three scorers tightly together in 15th, 16th and 17th, then brought their fifth man home only a tick behind Bend’s third to seal the 110-167 victory.
