Girls cross-country team makes state

The Mountain Home Tigers girls cross country team came in third at last Thursday's District III 4A cross country meet at Eagle Island State Park while the Tiger boys came in eighth.

Bishop Kelly won the girls race with 32 points. Kuna was second with 53, Mountain Home, third with 102, Emmett, fourth with 112, followed by Skyview, 115, Middleton, 135, Columbia, 147, and Nampa, 253. The top four teams advanced to state this Saturday back at Eagle Island State Park.

"It was a great run," said Tiger cross country coach Doug Root. "I knew we could do it, but Monday at practice, when I only had three varsity girls there because we have the flu going around, it really worried me, but everybody got healthy and we ran great!"

Haley Schaefer led the Mountain Home girls with a 10th-place finish with a new PR time of 20:19. Alycia Crandall's time of 20:23, also a new PR, placed her right behind Haley. Jordan Vivier also had a new PR with her 20:40, which placed her 16th. Kacee Cameron also had a new PR at 22:33, which placed her 29th. Ashley Mayberry's 23:18 was a new PR, and placed her 36th, one ahead of teammate Jessi Cameron, who ran a 23:33. McKenzie Dorr's 24:22 was also a PR and placed her 42nd out of 54 runners.

Bishop Kelly also won the boys competition. Their score of 43 beat second-place Columbia by 20 points. Kuna was third with 67, Skyview, fourth with 99, Middleton was next with 134, followed by Nampa, 157, Emmett, 165, and Mountain Home, 183. Despite finishing last in the boys competition, all seven Tiger boys runners set new PRs.

"If you've run the best race of the year and you still finish there, there's not a whole lot you can say about it," said Coach Root of his boys. "We ran very, very well. We had the first kid in probably four years since Brandon Sloan graduated that ran 18 (minutes) flat, and he (Joe Gutierrez) is a freshman, so he's coming back. Three of our four top runners are freshmen, the other's a sophomore, so we're very, very young, and if they keep working at it throughout the year, over the summer, we could be very competitive next year, because technically, we're only losing one senior off that starting lineup, so I'm really looking forward to next year."

Joe Gutierrez led Mountain Home with a time of 18:00, which placed him 23rd. Robby Pack came in 29th with his 18:28, Dylan Johnson ran an 18:55, Garrett Wood, 19:09, Colby Hall, 19:45, Taylor Croft, 19:45, and Chris Austin, 20:39, all PRs.

Mountain Home had two girls run in the JV meet. Ashley Sasaki set a new PR, breaking the 25-minute mark with 24:59, and Tiana Svetkovich ran a 25:00, her best time this year.

Running in the JV boys race were Gavin Cline, who set a new PR with his time of 19:32, James Simon, who ran a 20:09, Stephen Bush had a new PR of 20:16, and Aaron Menheart ran his personal best with a 21:31.

The Tiger girls have run against schools that will be at the state meet, and Coach Root expects his girls to do well there.

"We've beaten Wood River, they're going to be there, we've beaten Jerome once, they've beaten us once, so we're right there with them, we've outrun Pocatello before and Century and Preston have pretty good teams, so it'll be very tough.

"We've got our three lead runners who are doing a very good job for us, and we couldn't get there without our bottom four, and if those bottom four keep improving like they have the last couple weeks, we could make a run for a trophy."