YAKIMA – As she examined the cross-country course a day earlier at Franklin Park, Annamarie Maag couldn’t help but notice the steep grade at the park’s northeast corner.
“When we got here, that hill definitely looked like it was impossible,” she said.
Maag, a junior at Jesuit High School in Portland, had been training on some mean hills as part of some rigorous training leading up to Saturday’s Sunfair Invitational. That training appeared to make a difference as she charged the hills and distanced herself from an impressive girls field to win the feature race at what is regarded as the top cross-country invitational in the Northwest.
Maag’s time of 17 minutes, 39.4 seconds over the 3.0-mile, hilly terrain was 16 seconds faster than runner-up Kinsey Gomez of Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. It also was the sixth fastest girls time run in the meet’s 36-year history.
Glacier Peak’s 14-year-old freshman phenom Amy-Eloise Neale finished third in 18:16.2 and Liz Brandon of Eagle, Idaho, was fourth in 18:20.7.
Mead junior Baylee Mires, the defending Sunfair champion, was fifth in 18.26.0.
Annamarie Maag, a junior from Jesuit High School in Portland, Ore., wins the elite girls race at the Sunfair Invitational Oct. 3, 2009 in Yakima (photo by Kevin Bishop).
“It’s definitely a respectable field,” Maag said of a group that included eight state champions. “I was really nervous coming into it. I know Baylee Mires. I’ve raced against her quite a few times. She’s very talented. I just tried to use that to push me to stick with her and try to push the pace.”
The top flight girls was the featured race on a windy, sunny day in Yakima. The boys field also had many of the Northwest’s elite prep runners and Gig Harbor’s Conner Peloquin rose to the top again, winning his second big regional invitational title in as many weeks.
Like Maag, Peloquin also charged the hills better than his competitors and created too much distance for others to catch up, winning in 15:24.3. Auburn Riverside senior Kenny Krotzer finished second (15:33.7), followed by Bellevue’s Joel Ambo (15:37.5) and Boise, Idaho’s Eric Fitzpatrick (15:38.8).
Mitchell Briggs of Mill Creek’s Jackson High School finished fifth to cap an incredible day for the Timberwolves, who won six of the seven boys varsity flights to cruise to the boys team title.
“Coming in, I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like,” said Peloquin, who won the Bob Firman Invitational in Boise, Idaho on Sept. 26. “I knew there were a lot of good kids in this race. Ben Demaree (of Jesuit) is the top returner from Oregon. Mack Young (of Redmond) is the top returner from Washington. Eric Fitzpatrick is awesome. So is Kenny Krotzer as well as Mitchell Briggs from Jackson. I knew there was going to be a lot of competition. I knew it was going to be a tough race.”
It was tough for about a mile before the 5-foot-7, 125-pound Peloquin decided to hit a higher gear on the hills.
“I went out in the first mile. I was feeling pretty comfortable,” Peloquin said. “Even with the terraces and the hills, I felt it was a little slow so I decided to make a move at the mile mark. If guys were going to continue to go with me, I was going to continue to surge to try to break them a little bit. Fortunately, I was able to break them and put a pretty big gap between me and the second-place guy.”
Conner Peloquin of Gig Harbor (Wash.) High School won his third invitational title this fall after also winning the Capital Invite in Olympia and the Bob Firman Invitational in Boise, Idaho (photo by Kevin Bishop).
That “second-place guy” was Auburn Riverside’s Krotzer, who’s making a name for himself in cross country regionally this season. Krotzer took second to Jesuit’s Ben Demaree at the Nike Pre-Nationals in Portland last weekend. Two weeks earlier, he finished second to Peloquin at the Capital Invite in Olympia.
Krotzer, a top middle-distance runner in track and field, had hoped to stay close enough to the leaders and outkick them at the finish.
“Before I knew it , Conner had already gotten away,” Krotzer said. “I felt like if I had stayed with him I would have been in a better striking position. I didn’t race how I wanted to but I’m still really happy. Our team got second. That’s incredible for us. We’ve made huge improvements over last year.”
Roughly 2,700 runners from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and British Columbia competed in 11 different high school races. The Sunfair Invitational offers seven different varsity flights to give runners from each school a chance to shine in their own races and score points in the race for the team championships.
Although Washington’s top-ranked Class 4A boys team, Jackson, won six of the seven varsity flights to capture the team title, the race day chatter still focused on the elite girls field.
Maag was coming off a victory at the Nike Pre-Nationals. Brandon of Eagle, Idaho, took first at Bob Firman. Then there was the defending Sunfair champion, Mires, and a wild card in Glacier Peak’s freshman, Neale, who won her flight at the Stanford Invitational recently.
“It was pretty intense,” Kingston’s Ruby Roberts said.
Maag of Jesuit, however, quickly ended any suspense, choosing to attack the hills hard and turning the event into a race for time.
Jesuit won the girls team title after the Crusaders tied a meet record with five victories in the seven varsity flight races. Jesuit, a 6A state champion the past six years in Oregon, is ranked No. 11 in the country.
“Our team had a lot of success today,” Maag said. “I felt like I had to hold up my end of the stick. I was a little nervous about that. Toward the middle of the race, I was pleased.”
Neale of Glacier Peak seemed disappointed.
“It was a really tough race today,” she said. “I’ve been sick. It made it harder. Even if I was fresh today, it still would have been really hard.”
Sunfair Invitational meet director Phil English considered the event to be another success. This was his 23rd year running the showcase event.
“I think it went pretty well,” said English, the coach at Eisenhower. “The weather cooperated even though it was a little bit dodgy in the morning with the early shower. It kept the dust down on the course a bit, so it made the footing fairly good.”
Which led to some solid traction for two strong hill climbers in particular.
Ron Newberry can be reached at ronnewberry@coachesaid.com.
Complete results of the Sunfair Invitational also can be seen at www.sunfairrun.com.
The view from the hilltop at Yakima's Franklin Park, home of the Sunfair Invitational (photo by Kevin Bishop).
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