Zack Munson, Anna Callahan Run To Impressive Victories In Elite Races

Story and Photos by Keenan Gray for DyeStat

For the second weekend in a row, the Jesuit boys and girls cross country teams conquered the state of Washington.

Led by senior Jacob Nenow on the boys side and sophomore Maura O’Scannlain on the girls side, the Crusaders were able to sweep the team titles in the elite races for the third consecutive year at the Nike Hole in the Wall Invitational at Lakewood High in Arlington on Saturday. 

“I think we kept our composure,” head coach Tom Rothenberger said. “It’s a very deep field with a number of outside of the state, region teams. It’s kind of a battle to be honest with you.”

INTERVIEWS | RESULTS

The Jesuit boys scored 84 points and held off both West Salem OR and Eastlake WA in a tight race where every contending team had its scorers in the top half of the race. West Salem finished second with 109 points and Eastlake was third with 110 points.

Last weekend at the Nike Twilight Invite in Marysville, Wash., Jesuit defeated Eastlake by 11 points in their first match-up of the season.

“To a certain extent, I think (Eastlake) may have been prepared last week,” Rothenberger said. “We were wearing white jerseys, so I think they knew who we were. We knew of them, but we didn’t know a ton. We had our eyes focused; we knew where they were today much more so what their jersey’s looked like. Our kids rose to the challenge.”

Nenow, who took fourth at last year’s meet, finished third overall in the field with a time of 15 minutes, 3.4 seconds for the 5,000-meter race to lead five Crusaders in the top 40. Senior Gus Clevenger (15:30.9) and junior Caden Swanson (15:42.2) each cracked the top 25, placing 17th and 23rd, while senior Joshua Augustine (15:57.1) and sophomore Coen Strub (16:00.9) were 32nd and 38th to round of the scoring for the Crusaders.

“We were happy with the team finish today,” Nenow said. “Just to be able to still win even though a lot of our guys weren’t super happy with how they did, but still overall it was a good team effort.”

Second-place West Salem saw junior Jack Meier round out the top five individual finishers, running a personal best time of 15:08.2.

Third-place Eastlake had two boys finish in the top 10 with seniors Ethan Pedersen (15:07.3) placing fourth and Noah Zahn (15:20.7) taking seventh.

Sehome senior Zack Munson used a late surge on the final 300 meters to get past Lake senior Cruize Corvin for the individual title, winning by a margin of 14:55.5 to 14:56.8 in an all-time finish.

“This was my last big in-season invite of my high school career, so I just wanted to put it all together,” Munson said. “I was really proud of my patience and it all paying off in the end. Ton of fun obviously, like Cruize is an amazing competitor. It’s going to be fun later in postseason at Boise.” 

The top-two Washington runners raced each other for the second time this season and now have evened up their head-to-head matchup at one apiece. Corvin won the first race on his home turf at the Fort Steilacoom Invite, defeating Munson by eight seconds in September.

With just under 1,000 meters to go, Corvin and Munson began to separate themselves from Nenow and the rest of the field. As they made their way down the final turn right onto the track, Corvin pulled a little bit ahead, but Munson remained on his shoulder until the final 100 meters where he took the lead to come out with the win.

“With a K to go, things started to heat up,” Munson said. “I heard someone over there before the last turn into the track say 500 to go and I was like, ‘Okay, I’m there.’…Cruize took the lead and then I just knew I had to hang on till that last 150 and it all worked out.”

Rounding out the other top 10 finishers in the boys race were Port Angeles senior Jack Gladfelter (15:15.5) in sixth, Rogers (Puyallup) senior Isaac Briggs (15:24.2) taking eighth, Cheyenne Mountain CO senior Kade Levings (15:24.2) placing ninth and Newberg senior Anthony Giesch (15:25) finising 10th.

The Jesuit girls were able to get past both Torrey Pines CA and Central Kitsap WA in the elite team race, scoring 97 points with O’Scannlain out front finishing sixth overall in a time of 18:13.7.

“We definitely did not have our best day but we all fought pretty hard and still had a pretty strong day,” O’Scannlain said.

Despite the absence of sophomore Emma Bennett for the another meet this season, who finished 25th at RunningLane last fall, the Crusaders managed to place three other girls in the top 50 alongside O’Scannlain as junior Liliana Hudnut (18:37.2) took 16th, senior Natalie Jack (19:03.7) was 36th and junior Amalie Beil (19:14.5) took 44th. Senior Maggie Bennett (19:28.6) rounded out the scoring for Jesuit, finishing 55th.

“Our lowstick runner got up into the top 10 and then our girls pack battled,” Rothenberger said. “We’re still waiting for the return of our No. 1 girl from last year. Emma Bennett is not racing yet, but our girls are stepping up and taking advantage of opportunities and we’re getting better every week.” 

Senior Sammi Dorostkar of Torrey Pines finished 28th overall for the second-place Falcons, running a time of 18:52.7.

Freshman Audra Palmer led third-place Central Kitsap with an 11th place finish in 18:20.5. Sophomore teammate Clare Herring was a second behind Palmer in 12th at 18:21.

In a battle between three of the top girls in Washington and the No. 1 runner out of Alabama in the individual race, Skyline junior Anna Callahan came out victorious, running a first-place time of 17:32.6 to best Mountain Brook AL senior Reagan Riley’s second place effort of 17:37.4.

“I definitely had my eyes on trying to win,” Callahan said. “It was definitely a very interesting race. I was not expecting to be leading the race for most of it, so that was very difficult. At the end, I didn’t know if I could finish in first there when I got passed for a bit, but that was a hard race and it was a good day.” 

Throughout the race, Callahan was challenged by Riley, but also Anacortes senior Jessica Frydenlund and East Valley (Spokane) junior Logan Hofstee. The four packed together for the first two miles of the race before Callahan really began to separate herself on the final portion of the course. 

While Callahan was first coming down on the track for the final stretch, all three girls behind her were still in good position to take the lead. Callahan just kept fighting until the end.

“It was a mental fight knowing that I can’t drop back and can’t give up,” Callahan said. “It was definitely hot out and smoky out so there’s a lot of conditions fighting against us. Really it was just a matter of keeping my mind in the game…It was a great opportunity to have some amazing girls to race against.”

Frydenlund was able to edge out her fellow 2A competitor Hofstee by a second to finish third overall in a margin of 17:38.7 to 17:39.9. 

Callahan’s fellow junior teammate Rebecca O’Keefe finished fifth overall in a time of 18:04.3.

Senior Sidney Clement of Sentinel BC finished in seventh in a time of 18:14.3 as she passed Bishop Blanchet WA sophomore Lily LaPorte, who finished eighth in 18:14.9.

Port Townsend junior Aliyah Yearian took ninth in 18:17.1 and Mira Costa senior Anna Chittenden was 10th in 18:20.1.