Columbia River girls finish third in state

PASCO -- The Columbia River girls team made Clark County history on Saturday at the state cross country championship, and it took every member of the team to accomplish its feat.

But, then again, that\'s the way the Chieftains have been running all season.

Columbia River girls finished third in the 3A meet, their first podium finish in school history. River\'s best previous finish was sixth.

But it also was the highest team placing by a Clark County girls cross country team since Washougal won the Class A state championship in 1986. And it was the highest finish of any girls team from a large school in county history.

The Chieftains didn\'t put an individual on the medals podium -- their top finisher was senior Zara Lukens in 16th place in 20:01 -- but their spread from their first through fifth runners was 59 seconds, best among the top nine teams in the field.

\"That\'s where our strength is,\" Lukens said. \"We\'re all really tight as a pack. This is really great for us.\"

Freshman Allison Clark, the team\'s No. 1 runner most of the season, followed closely behind Lukens, finished 19th in 20:07.

Senior Lexi Kamerath was 39th (20:30), sophomore Chelsea Hostetter, xxth in this race as a freshman last season, was 56th,(20:58) and freshman Sarah Bobbe was 59th (21:00).

Squalicum won the team title with 80 points. Mount Spokane finished second with 131 points, two better than River\'s 133 and three better than defending champion West Valley of Yakima\'s 134.

River\'s No. 6 and 7 runners -- sophomores Zea Collentine and Danyelle Douglass -- contributed to River\'s third-place showing even though their placings did not count toward the team\'s total. The top five placings are counted in the team score.

Collentine and Douglass both finished ahead of West Valley\'s No. 4 and 5 runners, adding four point to West Valley\'s team total and dropping the Rams itno fourth place.

Columbia River also came extremely close to overtaking Mount Spokane.

Mount Spokane\'s No. 5 runner, Sarah Craig, finished at 21:11, just ahead of Collentine (21:12) and Douglas (21:13). If either Collentine or Douglas would have been able to pass Craig, Columbia River would have tied Mount Spokane in team points, then been awarded second-place based off the tiebreaker.

It was also a solid day for Shane Geiger and the Camas boys team.

Camas, led by junior Shane Geiger\'s seventh-place finish in 16:28, finished ninth in the 3A boys meet with 234 points in the 3A race, the Papermakers\' highest finish at state since finishing sixth in 1997.

In the 4A boys race, Heritage finished 16th, led by junior Josh Burrus in 45th place in 16:58. Battle Ground\'s Erik Cronrath was the top local finish in the race, placing 27th in 16:33.

Mountain View\'s girls finished 13th in the 4A girls meet, with senior Lauren Breihof their top placer in 24th in 19:48.

In the 1A girls race, La Center ran to its best finish since 2002 behind Jami Beed\'s 18th-place finish (21:13) and Meagan Governor\'s 26th-place finish (21:31).

The La Center boys finished 16th in Class 1A. And Columbia River\'s Kaleb Kallappa placed second in the wheelchair division, finishing in 7:07, one second behind Cody Mace of Rogers-Spokane.