The Haines Glacier Bear cross-country teams will run their first meet of the season Saturday in Petersburg.
With 10 runners led by state qualifier Quinn Asquith Heinz, the boys should be competitive against the region’s top squads, but the girls may face a harder time, due to attrition from competing sports and injuries.
The girls’ team is thinner and includes three injured runners who won’t be running this weekend against the Vikings.
Lende will take five girls to Petersburg, the minimum required for a team to compete. They include: freshmen Serena Badgley and Polly Bryant, sophomore Tia Heywood, junior Maggie Daly and senior Jolene Lemieux.
Lemieux, who finished fifth at the regional championship last year, is expected to lead the team. “Jolene’s strong. I expect she’ll do well. She’s a good enough runner, she could get a running scholarship” to college next year, Lende said.
Daly and Heywood are team veterans expected to improve. Badgley is a sprinter, testing herself at long-distance running, and Bryant is a rookie. Sophomores Karlie Spud and Jess Giddings and junior Esther Bower are out with various foot and leg injuries.
“The girls are slim. We have five or maybe six runners. But they’re a super group. They’re all very steady,” Lende said.
The boys’ team includes seniors Blake Hamilton, Hunter Badgley, Chris Bowman and Nathan Piper, juniors Quinn Asquith Heinz and Devin Braaten, and sophomores Corey Piper, Chris Olsen, Patrick Henderson and Brandon Bachman.
Asquith Heinz, who finished fifth at regionals last year, and Hamilton, who placed seventh, are expected to lead the squad. Their teammates – with the exception of Nathan Piper – are veteran runners Lende’s hoping will move up a notch.
“Amongst the boys, they tend to start out easy and race every day. They like to race and have a good time. In some way, with kids like this, you have to work harder to have them take an easy day,” Lende said.
Overall, this year’s runners are an interesting group, Lende said. “The boys and girls know who they are and what they want to do. They don’t bow to peer pressure and they don’t want to please. They’re interesting kids, and they’re all very centered in different ways.”
Both squads have been hurt in recent years by a 3A activities schedule that starts cross-country, wrestling and volleyball first thing in the fall. For smaller schools like Haines, that means many athletes are idle in November and December, she said.
The job of molding them into competitive teams will fall largely to coach Liam Cassidy, who was out of town this week at a wedding. “Liam’s a very motivational coach. It will be interesting to see what he can talk them into,” Lende said.
Other meets this year will include at Yakutat Sept. 11, at Juneau Sept. 18 and the regional championship in Sitka Sept. 25. The state championship, Oct. 2, will be held at Anchorage’s Bartlett High School.