Bears run with chance at state
Forty years later, Central Valley’s boys cross country team finally got the chance to run at a state high school cross country meet.
The Bears have been shut out of the state meet since it was formally adopted by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association as a state-sanctioned event in 1969.
This year’s team, considered one of the top boys teams in the Pacific Northwest, finished third Saturday at the state meet at Pasco. The Bears, led by seniors Sean Coyle and Tylor Thatcher, scored 93 points. Ferris won its fourth consecutive boys title, beating out Mead, with both squads considered the best in the country at one time during the season.
The only other state appearance by the Bears was in 1966, in the days when the state’s coaches invited the best teams in the state to run at Seattle’s Green Lake Park to informally crown the state’s top teams.
Central Valley participated in 1966. Pete Whitford covered the 2.3-mile Green Lake course in 11 minutes, 3.2 seconds to win the individual championship, crossing 10 seconds ahead of Lewis and Clark’s Tom Burkwist, and the Bears finished sixth as a team behind champion LC.
Part of the problem for Central Valley reaching state has been the tremendous power of the Greater Spokane League, which swept the top three spots at this year’s race.
The GSL has been home to the state champion 19 straight times. The last time a team not from the GSL won a state title was 1987, when Eisenhower of Yakima captured the title at Fort Place Worden State Park in Port Townsend.
Starting in 1988 under coach Pat Tyson, Mead won nine straight times. Bob Barbaro’s University teams then won three straight titles. Mead won three more titles from 2000 through 2002.
But it’s been deeper than that. The Greater Spokane League has been home to the top two teams in the state meet 13 times since 1988. The GSL swept the top three state spots five straight times, from 1997 through 2001, before doing it again this season. In 1998 the league took the top four state team places.
The Bears are in good shape looking to next season and will likely be favored to win the GSL title. Central Valley loses only Coyle and Thatcher to graduation. Not counting those seniors, the Bears’ underclassmen would have earned 203 points, good for a seventh-place state finish.
Ferris and Mead both lose the bulk of their teams to graduation, leaving next year’s race for the state title wide open. A 20th straight state title for the GSL is far from a lock.
The Central Valley girls were seventh in the State 4A meet and will return the top five scorers back. Eden Lake, Breanna Barsten and Ari Rios were the top three Lady Bears to finish, followed by junior Melinda Miller and sophomore Tris Kline.
In Class 2A, West Valley’s boys finished third in a tight race, just 13 points behind second-place Sehome and 31 behind state champion Burlington-Edison.
The Eagles, made up of juniors and sophomores, scored 86 points and were led by Richard Keroack’s sixth-place finish. Keroack covered the 5K course in 16:37. Sophomore Michael White was 12th in 17:07 and junior Joey Hartmeier 18th in 17:25, two seconds faster than junior Alex Hanson, who was 20th. Junior Justin Degenhardt completed the scoring for the Eagles with a 30th-place finish in 17:45.
The Eagles score matched their effort in 1990, when they finished second to newly-combined Edmonds-Woodway – a team that should have been bumped up to Class AAA. The school’s best state point total was 81 points in 1984.
West Valley coach Jim McLachlan’s team has finished second at state three times. The longtime Eagles coach has won state titles for boys and girls track and girls cross country. A boys cross country state title is the only one to have eluded him in his three decades at the school.
The coach said earlier this fall he will return next fall.
The challenge for West Valley is that both Burlington-Edison and Sehome return strong teams as well. The defending state champions lost just two seniors from this year’s squad and Sehome, like West Valley, returns intact.