Port Orchard, WA - On a beautiful fall day, the eve of Halloween, the Trojan Cross Country programs traveled across the sound for the Northwest Region Championship meet hosted by Olympic College. Two runners came into women's race heavily favored to win, Izabelle Anderson from Whatcom and Jasmine Davis from Pierce, which gave them the leg up on taking home the team championship. The 5k golf course in Port Orchard presented a beautiful track but not necessarily the fastest course the runners have seen this season. Izabelle Anderson indeed finished first with a time of 18:56, but 12 seconds slower than her 5k PR of the season. Whatcom and Pierce would earn the 1st/3rd and 2nd/5th finishers respectivly, giving those two schools the initial edge to take home the team regional championship.
It was Everett's strong grouping inside the top 8 (finishing 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th) that propelled the team to a 6 point victory over Pierce college, taking home the 3rd region championship in the past 6 years. Avery Daniels finished first for the Trojans with a time of 20:53.20 in her first 5k race of the season and fellow sophomore, Tracey Hatch finished 21 seconds later. Freshman teammates Patience Mwaura and Dylan Dimond finished 30 seconds later, beating out three Olympic runners and redshirt freshman Caelyn Foster rounded out the team scoring for EvCC finishing 20th overall. Johanna Schmidt and Marcella fuller finished 22nd and 25th respectively and served to displace points of four other runners.
The men's 8k race followed with Cayan Dibble from Green River, the heavy favorite to win. He did not dissapoint, but Ryan Clough of Olympic put some pressure on him and finished just two seconds behind. Whatcom would get the next three runners across, followed by the 8th and 17th place finishers which would be enough to secure a 1st place team finish with 37 points. Two Trojans finished directly behind the Whatcom trio, Adolfo DeRobles followed by Ryan Barene setting up what would be a close race for 2nd place between Everett and Green River. The Gators finished 1st, 9th, 12th, 13th, and 19th to Everett's 6th, 7th, 11th, 14th, 18th which gave GRC the 54 to 56 point advantage to claim 2nd.
While the course yielded very few PR's (Marcella Fuller, Elijah Roberts, and Josiah Nobles did PR), it did give the Trojans one final race preparation before the NWAC championships on November 13th at a course that was previewed earlier in the year. The EvCC women have a good opportunity to finish inside the top 3 based on past race results, while the men look make a run at the top 5.
