Cross country opens with two-race week

Raider Cross Country had a delayed start to the 2014 season as Moses Lake cancelled their Sept. 12 invitational. Instead, the Raider cross country team started at Bridgeport Sept. 16 with a 2.2-mile race.

The Bridgeport Invite featured all Central Washington B schools, and was a good early season gauge of how the Raiders stack up to league competition.

"This was our first two races of the season, and for this being early in the season all performed well, giving their team their best efforts," Head Coach Gary Darnold said.

On the girls' side, freshman Kayla St. Pierre was the only Raider who raced at Bridgeport, where she edged out Jenna Valentine of Tonasket by 9 seconds to finish second overall with a time of 17 minutes 14.4 seconds.

Junior Chris Oates led the Raider boys, finishing second in 12:47. Sophomore Jerry Palmer finished 19th at 15:00.8. Freshman Cole Trotter took 21st in 15:04.6. Sophomore Cameron Tillman, in his first cross country race, placed 31st in 16:24.3. Junior Kaden Trotter came right behind Tillman, taking 32nd with the time of 16:28.1. Sophomore Will Friedlander placed 34th in 16:56.6. Freshman Aidan Derr who, was also running in his first cross country race, placed 45th in 22:00.1.

On Saturday at Spokane Valley, the Raiders ran in the Runners Soul Erik Anderson Invite against a larger, tougher field of runners.

"In Spokane we got to see some much bigger schools, and it was a good experience for our runners to compete with them," Darnold said.

Darnold was able to take a larger team to Spokane than Bridgeport, with eight boys and two girls competing. This race was also the standard cross country distance of 5,000 meters or 3.125 miles.

Eighth-grader Loryn Moore led the Raider girls in her first cross country race with a time of 23:25.33. St. Pierre finished 22nd in 25:45.55.

In the boys' JV race, Junior Edmund Fenton also ran his first-ever cross country race, finishing 152nd with the time of 26:28.39. Eighth-grader Braxton Hernandez also ran his first cross country race at the meet, finishing right behind Fenton for 153rd in 26:44.

In the boys' varsity race, Chris Oates again led the Raider boys by finishing 57th in 19:07.97. Senior Ray Yazzie was the second Raider across the finish line, taking 94th in 20:46.96. Will Friedlander finished 121st in 22:55.58. Cole Trotter was only 11 seconds behind him, taking 124th at 23:06.47. Cameron Tillman finished right behind Trotter for 125th at 23:34.54. The final Raider across the finish line at Runners Soul was Kaden Trotter at 136th with the time of 26:36.8.

"All of the runners found racing to be very demanding and saw what they need to do to compete," Darnold said. "Over half the team had their first cross country race ever this week, and all did well." Raider Cross Country has a bye this week and will return to action Oct. 4 at Colville for the Can Am Invite.