Cheney High girls cross country team continued its pursuit of a Great Northern League title with a 25-32 win over Pullman in dual meet action Oct. 4. The Blackhawk boys showed they still have a little ways to go before replacing the Greyhounds as GNL favorites, falling on the road 20-35.
Hannah Spakousky paced the Cheney girls, finishing second with a time of 20 minutes, 40 seconds, 18 seconds back of Pullman junior Jenna Herzog in first. The Blackhawks grouped fairly well, with Megan Habegger fourth in 21:43, Marion Mager-Reeser fifth in 21:53 and Alexia Batchelor sixth in 22:09 — with Brette Draper not far back in eighth (22:37) to wrap up Cheney’s scoring.
Jessica Vietzke was ninth in 22:58 while Ryleigh Bowes finished 14th (24:07) in the field that also included junior varsity runners alongside varsity. The win moves the Blackhawks girls to 3-0 in league competition.
Bas Holland led the boys, finishing second in 16:49 — two seconds behind Pullman’s Eliason Kabasenche. Beckett Schoenleber was sixth in 18:20 while Dillon Newbry, Patrick Purviance, Tucker Cunningham and Julian Torres finished eighth through 11th, with 28 seconds separating Newbry’s 18:23 from Torres time. Charles Cindric was 13th to wrap up Cheney’s varsity finishes.
Saturday, the Blackhawks hit the trails again, this time in Western Washington at the Nike Hole in the Wall Invitational at Lakewood High School in Marysville. The meet featured competition in races whose composition was determined by the runner’s average time at 5,000 meters.
Most of Cheney’s varsity boys competed in the “Over 18 minutes” classification, finishing eighth overall among 32 teams. The Blackhawks varsity girls ran in the “Under 22:30” bracket, finishing 20th out of 27 teams.
Holland turned in the highest finish for Cheney, taking third with a season-high time of 16:18.4, just behind fellow West Plains runners Mason Williams and Tyler Pena of Medical Lake. Other finishers were Cunningham in 36th, Schoenleber 62nd, Newbry 94th, Aidan McCrum 110th, Sam Steele 119th and Andres Margraf 150th.
Spakousky was 63rd in the girls varsity competition, with Habegger 97th, Mager-Reeser 112th, Draper 116th an Jaela Thornburg 139th.
Cheney completed its regular season Wednesday, Oct. 11, by hosting West Valley in a GNL final dual meet at Salnave Park. After that, the Blackhawks get about 10 days to prepare for District 7 competition Oct. 21 at Beachview Park in Clarkston.
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.
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