The 2024 Cascade High School Cross Country season came to an end, leaving many accolades in its wake. The team earned individual and team championships for boys and girls in both the Caribou Trail League and the newly expanded District 5. However, all these awards and victories mean little to the runner unless their best performance happens at state.
To punch their ticket to state, the Kodiak runners traveled to Apple Ridge (Yakima, Washington) to run in a gruesome 3-mile race. Grace Mcdevitt and Benjamin Jerome won districts individually with times of 18:54 and 16:14. Both teams swept the district competition with scores over ten points ahead of their closest competitors. Once the Kodiaks knew that they were on their way to state, they began training to prep for their most important race of the year.
“In preparation for state, the two weeks before we started to dial it down a bit, we still did hard workouts they were just shorter. Towards the week of state, we started to taper to try and save our legs for the big race,” said Cruz Martinez, senior varsity runner and captain.
All the training and all the races leading up to it culminated in one event. The Kodiaks left a day earlier, to get to the course in Pasco, Washington, giving the team a chance to slowly run the hilly golf course that acted as a 5-kilometer racecourse for the coming day. That night the team stayed in a hotel near the course, trying to silence their nerves and get some sleep.
“Before the race, I was definitely nervous, but I was also focused on making my last race the best race possible. It was nice to prepare, run, and celebrate alongside my teammates one last time,” said Caroline Menna, one of the top varsity girl runners and captain.
Once race day came, the Kodiak boys' team was predicted to place 17th, with no runner under 40th place and four out of the five top runners in the 100th to 200th range individually. The girls' team was predicted to be in 10th place with only one of their runners in the top 20.
The Kodiaks knew that they were better than the speculations and were determined to prove them wrong. All the season’s training led up to this moment, and it would all be over in a matter of minutes.
The first race was the girls 1A championships, senior runners Grace McDevitt and Caroline Menna both had stellar performances placing 12th and 20th respectively with times of 19:35 and 20:06. They were followed by Alice Farrell (12), 32nd, Daniella Mcdevitt (9), 73rd, Gwen Pehowski (11), 106th, Napiqua Gibbs (12), 120th, and Piper Copson (9), 135th. The girls outdid their prediction and placed 7th as a team, marking one of the best girls' performances in Cascade High School history.
Following the girls' race was the beginning of the boys’ 1A race. Predicted to be 17th in the state, the boys felt like they had something to prove, not being recognized as one of WIAA’s top cross-country programs. They did just that as they placed 10th as a team and individually Benjamin Jerome (12) placed 21st with a time of 16:37, Kolsten Breaux (9) placed 57th, Lane Bedard (9) 74th, Cruz Martinez (12) 111th, Ryder Fiano (9) 113th, Cooper Krejci (9) 133rd and Kasen Elser (9) 155th. Both the boys' and girls' teams worked extremely hard leading up to state and it paid off, proving to Washington that Cascade was better than expected.
“State was a really great experience; on paper we were much slower than predicted as Cascade runs much harder courses with much longer hills that many other schools and based on times we are slept on,” said Gwen Pehowski (11).
At state, not only did the Kodiak harriers prove to everyone that they are better than predicted; they achieved team success and set personal records. State was an experience that many Cascade runners will never forget, but for some this is just their first of many. On both the boys' and girls' teams, there are several underclassmen who, if they continue to train diligently, will have another crack at state in the future.
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