The Haines High School cross-country teams face their biggest contests of the season Saturday in Ketchikan, where teams will vie for the honor of representing Southeast at next week’s state championship in Anchorage.
Haines coach Tara Bicknell said this week the race will be the first of the season for her young runners not to be competing with students from the region’s largest schools.
“I’m trying to let them know this is the race against their own competitors. They should be beating the other runners. They’re among their peers and everyone ahead of them is a point against them,” Bicknell said.
Bicknell said runners will be looking for every advantage on Ketchikan’s lasso-shaped course around Ward Lake. “This is the race we want to peak at. All the workouts and hard work of the season is for this race,” she said.
The top three boys’ and girls’ teams from the region’s small schools will advance to state, as will the top 15 individual boy and girl runners. Last year, Glacier Bears Zayla Asquith-Heinz and Keegan Sundberg qualified for the state meet.
Sundberg, a senior, again will likely lead the boys, joined by juniors Casey Bradford and Neil Little, sophomore Mori Hays, freshman Hudson Sage, and juniors Matthew Greene and Zane Durr. Besides Sage, Bradford and Green are rookies.
Mount Edgecumbe and Sitka have been running ahead of Haines this season. But the boys also can expect to see competition from Kake, Wrangell, Petersburg and Skagway. “I think the boys will have their work cut out for them,” Bicknell said.
“We have a younger team than some of the other schools. I like it that (Haines runners) get to see those stronger runners, though. They learn what they can reach for,” she said. Another role model for the team is senior rookie Kyle Klinger, who’s traveling as team manager, and persevered at the back of the pack this year.
“Kyle doesn’t have the speed of a top runner, but he has a lot of willpower. I think the other kids have learned a lot about perseverance and steady pacing from him,” Bicknell said.
With senior Asquith-Heinz’s transfer this year, the girls’ squad also is powered by younger runners, Bicknell said, including sophomore Olivia Wing, freshmen Tulsi Zahnow, juniors Jenae Larson, Natalia Taylor, and Destinee Cowart, and freshman Brittney Bradford.
Only Taylor and Larson are returning runners.
“Some of the kids have never run before other than required running in phys ed,” Bicknell said.
The girls will field only six runners for seven available slots at the regional meet. “We have to do some recruiting,” Bicknell said.
The boys were seventh of 10 teams at last weekend’s Sitka Invitational; Haines girls were eighth of eight squads competing. The boys were led by Sundberg (25th of 120 runners; 18:43), followed by Bradford (53rd; 20:09), Little (56th; 20:15), Hays (71st; 20:56), Green (101st; 22:41), Durr (102nd; 22:43) and Klinger (120th; 34:46).
Wing led the Glacier Bear girls’ squad (47th; 25:04), followed by Zahnow (49th; 25:14), Larson (50th; 25:17), Taylor (64th; 26:58), Cowart (65th; 27:06), and Bradford (68th; 27:35).