Mount Si cross country makes a strong finish at State championships

Mount Si’s cross country runners put up another strong performance at the 4A State cross country meet Saturday, Nov. 5, at Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco.

The Mount Si girls team finished ninth overall. Senior Hannah Waskom finished fourth with a new personal record of 18:17.00.

Only three runners from the boys team qualified for state, with Joe Waskom taking third overall with a lifetime best time of 15:23.10.

Sean Sundwall, assistant cross country coach, said that while the team lost some strong runners to graduation this season, the girls team slightly out performed their predictions and ran very well. He spoke about Hannah Waskom’s performance, as the state meet was her final race for Mount Si High School before graduating.

“Hannah finished fourth in her best time of the season,” Sundwall said. “Finished a strong fourth and wrapped up an incredible four-year career in cross country with Mount Si. The school has never seen a runner like her. She will be running for the University of Washington next year which is the second-ranked team in NCAA.”

Sundwall also highlighted a runner he thinks has improved the most over the season, sophomore Addie Kaess. Of the 161 state runners, only 25 achieved personal records at the event. Kaess was one of those runners with a time of 20:30.30.

“She is one of the very small number of people who had a lifetime PR and catapulted herself to being our number-three runner for next year,” he said. “We are just incredibly proud of Addie and her progress throughout the year. She has had a PR in every single meet this year. She never had a bad race.”

When taking about the boys team before state, Sundwall said he felt Joe Waskom had a very real chance to win the meet, becoming the first sophomore to ever win. Joe finished third overall, but had the second highest finish for a sophomore boy in 4A State history, Sundwall said.

“He finished third, it is incredibly uncommon for a sophomore to finish third,” he said. “It wasn’t until the very end that the state championship was out of the picture. Everyone, front and back was senior, he held them off and finished incredibly strong, beat everyone he was supposed to beat and some he wasn’t supposed to beat.”

Grant Baker, another state runner, was able to qualify for state and run a good time despite working through some setbacks in the last year. Sundwall was happy Baker was able to perform so well.

“Grant was a few seconds off of his season best on a more challenging course,” he said. “For Grant it was a great ending to a challenging 12 months, dealing with injury and illness, to finish in the top 50 in his senior year was really heartening.”

Jackson Stokes also closed out his senior year at state with a strong race. He wasn’t able to get a personal record, but Sundwall said it was one of Stokes’ strongest races all year.

With the growth the program has experience over the past four years, Sundwall expects cross country to continue to be a strong sport in the Valley and is looking forward to the next runners joining the program in the coming years. Mount Si is already expecting strong runners graduating from the middle school level to join the program in 2017.

He attributes much of the program’s growth to the students who have been the face of the sport in the Valley.

“We will look at this graduating class as the class of kids who really made cross country cool and hopefully never look back in terms of the program’s success and participation,” Sundwall said.

“Two years ago we were in the upper 40s, this year we had 91 kids come out. That kind of turnout puts us right up there with the larger 4A schools. Over time there will be more opportunities to find those kids who will continue to move the program forward and compete for league, district and state championships.”