Prairie sweeps 3A GSHL cross country titles

A very odd cross country season had an even more peculiar finish Thursday at the 3A Greater St. Helens League championships.

The Prairie boys and girls teams swept to team titles as Falcons’ Annie Anderson and Landon Gunter took individual titles, even though Gunter wasn’t the first boy to cross the finish line Thursday.

Kelso’s Drew Norman was disqualified for theatrics at the finish line in an incident stemming from Kelso and Prairie’s dual meet last month.

On Feb. 24, Gunter beat out Norman at the finish line, waving to the Kelso senior in the process, Prairie coach Curtis Crebar said.

That set the stage for Thursday’s race at Heritage High School.

During Thursday’s race there was some pushing and shoving before Norman started to pull away. As he sprinted toward the finish line, Norman turned around, backpedaled the last 10 meters so he could wave at Gunter 40 meters back before shouting an expletive.

Norman was disqualified, giving the win to Gunter in 17 minutes, 20 seconds for 5,000 meters.

“It’s definitely not the way I wanted to win it, but I’m proud of my teammates for how they ran,” Gunter said.

The Prairie boys easily outdistanced Kelso 19-56 with Prairie’s Jordan McCready, Samuel Snyder, Logan Bigelow and Caden Hoyt taking third through sixth places. Mountain View’s Branden Chou placed second in 17:24, breaking up the possible Falcon sweep.

“We’ve won (district) the last four years now,” said Gunter, a senior. “Four out of five of us have been with each other the last four years, and Logan is one year below us.”

The Prairie girls posted an equally impressive win, outdistancing Kelso 24-57.

Prairie’s Annie Anderson (21:44), Lauren Sautter (21:52) and Alysia Fraly (22:16) went 1-2-3 followed by Evergreen’s Beatrice Le Gore (22:36).

“Me and Lauren have worked off each other, and I feel that really helped,” Anderson said. “She’s been winning some. I’ve been winning some. And it’s worked great.”

Anderson hung back in the first of three loops at Heritage as Sautter and Mountain View’s Maddy Wick set the early pace. After Anderson and Sautter ran the second loop together, Anderson surged ahead at the end.

“I wanted to stay behind (Sautter) or whoever went out first, because I’m better at picking up the pace (late),” Anderson said. “So I was just using the other runners to my advantage.”

Teamwork was a big part of Prairie’s success this cross country season, Gunter added.

“It was difficult at first because we weren’t able to meet up that much,” Gunter said. “But we were able to meet up for long runs on the weekends. … Once we started to be able to get practices regularly, that’s when we noticed how good we were together.”

Boys 3A Greater St. Helens Meet

At Heritage HS, 5,000 meters

Team scores — Prairie 19, Kelso 56, Mountain View 65, Heritage 101, Evergreen 131.

Individual champion — Landon Gunter, Prairie, 17:20

PRAIRIE — 1, Landon Gunter 17:20; 3, Jordan McCready 18:00; 4, Samuel Snyder 18:11; 5, Logan Bigelow 18:13; 6, Caden Hoyt 18:15.

KELSO — 8, Kamren Mattison 18:33; 9, Jonah Chamblee 18:35; 10, Evan Williams 18:36; 12, Giovannie Lopez 18:53; 17, Stanley Johnson 19:17.

MOUNTAIN VIEW — 2, Branden Chou 17:24; 13, Caden Alt 19:03; 14, Michael Scheider 19:09; 15, Adin Jura 19:10.

HERITAGE — 11, Jayden Morlan 18:43; 20, Zac Scala 19:44; 25, Quincy Lopez-Santillano 20:42; 27, Lee Huang 20:48; 28, Noah Blinsman 20:50.

EVERGREEN — 7, Lorenzo Anguiano 18:17; 34, Sirak Yohannes 21:53; 44, Andres Bejar 23:17; 47, Daniel Bejar 24:01; 50, Luke Twiss 24:50.

Girls 3A Greater St. Helens Meet

At Heritage HS, 5,000 meters

Team scores — Prairie 24, Kelso 57, Mountain View 63, Evergreen 80, Heritage inc.

Individual champion — Annie Anderson, Prairie, 21:44

PRAIRIE — 1, Annie Anderson 21:44; 2, Lauren Sautter 21:52; 3, Alysia Fraly 22:16; 7, Aleah Vojak 23:21; 11, Natalie Moulton 23:58.

KELSO — 5, Megan Gott 23:02; 8, Mina Rios 23:37; 13, Sophia Cheslock 24:53; 15, Elizabeth Dolan 25:07; 17, Lilly Hooper 25:49.

MOUNTAIN VIEW — 6, Maddy Wick 23:12; 10, Noelle Garrett 23:55; 12, Morgan Geddry 24:19; 14, Natalie Garrett 24:53; 22, Dayana Ramirez 28:18.

EVERGREEN — 4, Beatrice Le Gore 22:36; 9, Chloee Matlock-Shoptaw 23:40; 19, Fevet Ibrahim 26:22; 27, Aurora Ferguson 29:21; 29, Kenzie Lyons 29:58.

HERITAGE — 16, Tabitha Wallace 25:22.