Summit OR Girls Take Nike Cross Nationals By Storm

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

PORTLAND -- A special season for the Summit OR girls cross country team reached dizzying heights Saturday with a Nike Cross Nationals championship. 

Running as Central Oregon, the Storm of Summit became the first team from west of Minnesota -- and only the second team outside of New York -- to win the national championship in girls cross country. 

After more than a decade of stacking state titles in track and field and cross country like cord wood, Summit broke through a ceiling at Glendoveer Golf Course as a large contingent from Bend made the girls feel like the home team. 

Summit was excited to be ranked in the top 10 at the start of the season, but the addition of transfer Kelsey Gripekoven and freshman Teaghan Knox bolstered a rock solid lineup that ran connected and inspired all season. 

"Last night I was going through my training log and going through our goals and wrote 'We're ranked #7,' and then above it #2, and then #1, and it was so crazy to see how thankful we were when we were ranked seventh," Azza Borovicka Swanson said. "We stayed humble, and I think it shows more strength when you're not bragging. We're strong together, and humble, and all proud of one another."

Humility, if it was needed, was reinforced when coach Jim McLatchie was hopsitalized with a stroke prior to the district meet. 

"We've been though a lot with Coach Jim, and I think we had a lot to race for," Isabel Max said.

McLatchie returned to practice and continued to guide the team with his wife, Carol, and a group of dedicated assistants. 

On Saturday, the Scotsman with the white beard left for a three-hour car ride home as soon as the meet ended, to get some rest. 

But from his home in Bend, he recalled being at the bottom of the final hill on the course and seeing Summit's five scorers in good positions. 

"I was shouting hard, 'We can still do it,'" he said. "When the fifth girl went by, I thought, 'Oh, shit, we've won the damn thing!"

On the podium, Summit's team fidgeted next to Naperville North IL and Wayzata MN as they all awaited the team scores. 

But McLatchie knew that Central Oregon had done it. 

And it really wasn't close. 

Summit scored 120 points and Naperville North was second for the second straight year, with 186 points. Wayzata was third with 207 points and 11-time champion Fayetteville-Manlius, expected to be in a down year, grabbed fourth with 212 points. 

Summit ran with only six athletes after sophomore Jasper Fievet got ill and couldn't race. 

"We were a wee bit worried," McLatchie said. 

It caused some stress. 

"It's a hard day, getting up and knowing that there's a lot on the line," said Fiona Max, who led the team with her 11th-place overall finish (17:29). 

McLatchie's wife, Carol, was attending the USATF annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio and monitored the meet via the Webcast. She was in tears upon seeing her team win the title. 

At the starting line, McLatchie offered what he said was a simple message:

"Get out fairly fast but don't kill it. When you get to 4K, hit the hammer and you can make up 20 places pretty quick," he said. "And we did that."

In some ways, Summit's victory is connected to a long line of distance running success in the outdoors-driven city of Bend that began in the 1990s with Bob Latham's Bend High girls teams. The 1992 Bend team that scored 20 points at the state meet was ranked No. 1 in the country before there was a national championship meet to determine the top teams. 

"I don't think you can look at what Bob Latham did and not appreciate and respect what he did for running in Bend," Summit track coach Dave Turnbull said. "There is absolutely a connection."

But the McLatchie brain trust has been hard at work producing national qualifying teams. And this year's championship team might not be the end of it. The team's top seven has no seniors. 

"Jim and Carol are two of the greatest scientific coaches I've ever seen," Turnbull said. "They are sending me articles every week about new training modalities. They believe in the mechanics of speed.

"I believe there's no such thing as a distance race in high school. These kids need to be able to move with speed. (The McLatchies) can't tell you how many miles these kids train every week, but they can tell you every interval split, every single year. These kids are going to be fast."

From the bottom of the hill to the finish line, that's where Jim McLatchie knew Summit would gain spots. 

"We do 150s every day," he said.