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West Salem boys edge North in a tiebreaker
By Lee Clarkson
Statesman Journal
October 28, 2010

The results this year were a mirror image, but it took a tiebreaker to get there.

South Salem’s girls and West Salem’s boys repeated Wednesday as Central Valley Conference cross country district champions at Bush’s Pasture Park.

The highest drama came in the boys meet, where a tiebreaker was needed to determine the district champion.

West Salem and North Salem each had 37 points. Team points are tabulated by scoring the finish for each squad’s top five runners.

When there is a tie, it is broken by comparing the sixth-place runners for each team. West Salem’s Sean Barr (16th) finished ahead of North’s Carlos Flores (25th) to give the edge to the Titans.

Both teams’ top five runners automatically qualified for the state championships, slated for Nov. 6 at Lane Community College in Eugene.

West Salem coach Tom Jimenez was not surprised the Titans had to fight off North Salem for the district title.

“I told the kids coming into the year that North was going to put in a summer worth of work and that they definitely wanted what we had (the district title),” Jimenez said. “We knew coming in it was going to be tight.”

North Salem coach Don Berger was disappointed coming up just short for the district title, but said he is glad that the season is not over.

“Our athletes poured their hearts out, put it on the line and I’m proud of what they did,” Berger said. “I’m excited to go after it at state next week.”

Redmond’s Trenton Kershner ran away from the field to take the boys individual title in 16 minutes, 11.2 seconds.

North’s Cody Franklin was second in 16:27.2, a personal best by 11 seconds.

“I felt good” Franklin said. “My main goal was to hold the West guys off and see if we could go to state.”

Franklin looks forward to competing at state along with Viking teammates Jorge Rico (fifth place), Ramon Villa (ninth), Sergio Olmos (10th) and Chris Musser (11th).

“When you run by yourself … it’s harder to keep yourself motivated.” Franklin said. “With my team there, we’re just going to go for it.”

West Salem’s boys state qualifiers are Trent Dudley (third), David Clark (fourth), Emanuel Kraynick (seventh), Brendan Abel (eighth) and Matthew Thomas (15th).

Sprague’s Jacob Atkinson (sixth) and Nathaniel Roberts (11th), and South Salem’s Andrew Jensen (13th) qualified for state as individuals, as did Kershner of Redmond.

South’s Emily Weber took the girls individual title in 18:53.2 to help the Saxons claim the team championship with 18 points. Redmond (58) finished second.

After staying in the lead group with three other Saxons in the early stages, Weber made her move about halfway through the race to pull away.

“We stayed as a pack for the first mile and a half and then in the woods I picked it up,” Weber said.

South Salem’s state qualifiers, in addition to Weber, are Vivian Hawkinson (second), Courtney Hochstetler (third), Kellen Friedrich (fifth) and Lila Hawkinson (seventh).

Saxons coach Lis Ann Saxe was pleased with her team’s performance.

“They ran incredibly fast times on the course today,” Saxe said.

Saxe wants her team to remain focused going into state but feels they will be ready.

“They know what their goals are,” Saxe said. “They know what they want to do as a team, and I believe they can do it.”

Other locals who qualified as individuals are West Salem’s Grace Lin (sixth) and Steffani White (ninth), Sprague’s Alyssa Kuenzi (10th) and North Salem’s Sarah Lopez (11th).

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