Thunder Mountain High School senior Naomi Welling showed she was more than the athlete that sprints, hurdles and jumps to state track championships, placing fourth in Saturday\u2019s 4A girls state cross country championship on the Bartlett High School trails in Anchorage.<\/p>\n
Welling ran the 5k course in a time of 19 minutes, 30 seconds, which came out to a 6:17 pace per mile.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that I put in the training and I had a lot of support from my coaches and my family,\u201d Welling said. \u201cI was just ready to go out and see what I could do.\u201d<\/p>\n
That \u201cto do\u201d list included challenging the states fastest girls harriers out of the gate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started out a little too fast so I was neck and neck with the winner for the first mile and then they passed me,\u201d Welling said. \u201cI got a little tired and I settled into my own pace. They are just phenomenal runners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Welling kept the first two runners in sight the first two miles but then just noticed the third place finisher the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the course has a lot higher difficulty than any of the ones we have raced throughout the season,\u201d Welling said. \u201cYou kind of just have to go into it knowing that it is going to be tough. A lot more hills.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Welling did cross the finish line, her first thought was not relief or celebration, but determination.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter cross country I kind of just get excited for track,\u201d Welling said. \u201cWhen I actually cross the line I was, \u2018All right, I am ready for track season.\u2019 Cross country is my mental toughness training.\u201d<\/p>\n
West Anchorage\u2019s Molly Gellert won the championship in 18:58 with a average pace of 6:06, Kenai\u2019s Riana Boonstra was second in (19:04), South\u2019s Morgan Lash finished third (19:15), Kenai\u2019s Jaycie Calvert fifth (19:35), Kenai\u2019s Ithaca Bergholtz sixth (19:37), Colony\u2019s Jill Bowker seventh (19:47), West Valley\u2019s Jenna Difolco eighth (19:54), Bartlett\u2019s Carolynn Pype ninth (19:58) and Palmer\u2019s Ruby Woodings rounded out the top 10 (20:20).<\/p>\n
\u201cNaomi and Erin (Wallace) were first and second through the first 2K,\u201d TMHS coach Scott May said. \u201cBoth were feeling rested and great. They went out based on how they felt, which is good. In hindsight, they might have distributed a little differently. I am proud of them for trying and experimenting and you really need to have these kinds of races in order to really learn how to run. Our third girl (Dunya Hermann) had the race of her life, finishing ahead of competitors that she usually follows and achieving a lifetime personal best time of 22:08. I am proud of our runners this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
JDHS senior Alize Arthur led southeast 4A runners with a time of 17 minutes for 25th place and a pace of 5:29 per mile.<\/p>\n
Chugiak\u2019s Ty Jordan won the 4A boys title in 15:48 with a pace of 5:06. Service\u2019s Gus Schumacher was second (15:52), West\u2019s Finn Walker third (16:10), Kodiak\u2019s Michael Parnell fourth (16:24), Kodiak\u2019s Keith Osowski fifth (16:25), South\u2019s Derek Steele sixth (16:29), Wasilla\u2019s Quincy Fuller seventh (16:34), Soldotna\u2019s Aaron Swedberg eighth (16:35), South\u2019s Hamish Wolfe ninth (16:37) and Service\u2019s Riley Howard 10th (16:39).<\/p>\n
The Sitka boys used a strong team performance to win the 1A\/2A\/3A state title as Colin Baciocco placed fourth (16:48), David Wilcox sixth (16:51), Joseph Pate 12th (17:25), Jordan Zellhuber 15th (17:30), Triston Rosas 23rd (17:49), Neil Little 27th (18:06) and Connor Buxton 36th (18:16). <\/p>\n
Wrangell\u2019s Matthew Gerald broke into the top rankings with an eighth place finish of 17:16.<\/p>\n
Southeast 4A girl finishers included Ketchikan\u2019s Erika Rodanhisler 16th (20:15, TMHS\u2019 Erin Wallace 22nd (20:33), JDHS\u2019 Katline Barrows 56th (21:32), KTN\u2019s Sarah Cool 59th (21:38), KTN\u2019s Elizabeth Knight 65th (21:58), TMHS\u2019 Dunya Hermann 68th (22:08), JDHS\u2019 Malia Miller 69th (22:18), JDHS\u2019 Maddy Handley 70th (22:18), JDHS\u2019 Kyra Barrows 71st (22:44), JDHS\u2019 Gillian Smith 72nd (23:11), JDHS\u2019 Nicole Mannix 77th (23:54) and JDHS\u2019 Toma Kimlinger 79th (24:44).<\/p>\n
Southeast 4A boy finishers included JDHS\u2019 Ethan Goebel 41st (17:24), JDHS\u2019 Arne Ellefson-Carnes 46th (17:29), KTN\u2019s Sylvan Blankenship 49th (17:34), TMHS\u2019 Jonah Penrose 50th (17:36), TMHS\u2019 Obadiah Dawson 57th (17:50), KTN\u2019s Trent Rodanhisler 62nd (18:07), TMHS\u2019 Justin Sleepy 72nd (18:21), KTN\u2019s Leif Stephens 73rd (18:22), KTN\u2019s Leif Svenson 74th (18:22), JDHS\u2019 Ryan Moritz 79th (18:44), JDHS\u2019 Tim McKenna 80th (18:50), JDHS\u2019 Clem Taylor-Roth 81st (19:02) and JDHS\u2019 John White 84th (19:39).<\/p>\n
The top 10 1A\/2A\/3A boy runners were Galena\u2019s Kaleb Korta 1st (16:00), Seward\u2019s Hunter Kratz second (16:10), Galena\u2019s Jacob Moos third (16:21), Sitka\u2019s Colin Baciocco fourth (16:48), Unalaska\u2019s Ross Enlow fifth (16:50, 5:26), Sitka\u2019s David Wilcox sixth (16:51), Anchorage Christian\u2019s Blake Bennett seventh (16:56), Wrangell\u2019s Matthew Gerald eighth (17:16), Homer\u2019s Jordan Beachy ninth (17:18) and Grace Christian\u2019s Cameron Sheldon 10th (17:19).<\/p>\n
The top 10 1A\/2A\/3A girl runners were Glennallen\u2019s Briahna Gerlach first (19:04), ACS\u2019 Elizabeth Balsan second (19:38), Homer\u2019s Megan Pitzman third (19:40), Seward\u2019s Ruby Lindquist fourth (19:49), Barrow\u2019s Alaina Wolgemuth fifth (20:11), Barrow\u2019s Melissa Nicely sixth (20:35), Homer\u2019s Alex Moseley seventh (20:40), Homer\u2019s Audrey Rosencrans eighth (20:41), Grace Christian\u2019s Maddy Morgan ninth (20:47) and Anchorage Christian\u2019s Tanner Ealum 10th (20:49). Petersburg\u2019s Kayleigh Eddy was the top small school southeast finisher, crossing the line in 26th place (22:10).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thunder Mountain High School senior Naomi Welling showed she was more than the athlete that sprints, hurdles and jumps to state track championships, placing fourth in Saturday\u2019s 4A girls state cross country championship on the Bartlett High School trails in Anchorage. Welling ran the 5k course in a time of 19 minutes, 30 seconds, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":33297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-33296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33296"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=33296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}