Area Sports by Michael Dashiell

Seems to happen every season.

Sequim coach Harold Huff sees his athletes train hard and play hard at the Seaside Challenge in Oregon, then slip a little bit the next week in a league meet.

But the Wolves were in some good company Wednesday and still showed they can run with the big teams. Sequim's boys took second to North Kitsap, the No. 7 team in the 3A classification, and beat rival Kingston by 14 points on Sept. 30 at Kingston High School.

On the girls side, Kingston's Ruby Roberts legged out a 25-second win against Allison

Cutting, the defending 2A cross country champ, in Cutting's third race of the season.

"We raced flat, top to bottom," Huff said of Sequim's boys squad. "Every year we come back from Seaside, they race flat."

Sequim's Alex Jenkins was fifth with a 17:49 finish, Adrian Clifford was sixth at 17:54 and Colby Robb took seventh at 17:57. The Wolves' Drake Apablasa, Tyler Wilson-Walters and Joel Christopher took spots 13-15.

North Kitsap's Tabor Reedy and Joel Brose (both at 17:01) finished in a virtual tie for first place.

Kingston's boys took third overall, but are missing a top runner because of an illness. With a tough Interlake team waiting in the wings for districts, Sequim may have a tough time getting through to the state meet. The West Central District takes just two teams to state this fall.

"It's going to be a battle at districts," Huff said.

Kingston's girls must have impressed the crowd at home last week. The Buccaneers placed three runners in the top five places and edged the Vikings 33 points to 34 (low score wins). The Vikings came in ranked No. 4 by Washington state cross country coaches.

Cutting finished in 19:24, 25 seconds behind her rival and 13 seconds ahead of Marina Roberts.

"Alli ... looked good (but) she's not race-ready yet," Huff said. "We've just to get her training geared toward more high-intensity workload."

Sequim's Taylor Roads was 11th in the girls race at 22:33. Huff noted a strong performance from Heather Murray, a freshman who took 19th at 24:34.

"I was very happy with the way the girls ran," Huff said.

Sequim hosts Port Town-send and Olympic on Oct. 8 at Robin Hill Park.



Reach Michael Dashiell at miked@sequimgazette.com.