Ending their regular season roughly in the style in which they are looking to use at next week’s conference championship, the Falcon boys and girls cross country teams cleaned up at the North County Invitational Thursday.
Taking the starring role this week after the girls team won at the Hoquiam Invitational last Saturday, the boys dominated the four-race Marysville invite. Running on a new North County course on Cedar Crest Golf Course, the boys placed runners in the top three in freshman, sophomore, junior and senior races.
Senior James Sundquist was the standard bearer for the team, winning his race in a 200-meter downhill sprint against Stanwood’s Johnny Resetar. He won the race in 15 minutes, 58 seconds, one second faster than Resettar.
In the junior race, Holton Schmitt — running on the cold, wet, windy course after recovering from a bout with the flu — was third overall in 18:01, getting outkicked at the line by a Marysville runner.
Schmitt said the new 3.11-mile course, which replaces the old one at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, was worth running.
“I like it a lot more than Marysville,” he said.
Bringing in second place in the sophomore race was JD Peters, who finished in 17:34. Jason Fitz was the fastest Falcon freshman, taking third in 18:02 ahead of 10th place teammate Kurt Warwick.
The team scored a total of 15 points, well ahead of runner-up Marysville-Pilchuck.
On the girls side, the Falcons had a strong showing even though they sat senior Callie Supsinskas out to rest healing injuries. As a team, they were third overall with 31 points behind winner Stanwood. The top finisher for the team was Mary Bakeman, who took second place in the sophomore race. Her time of 21:07 was just 13 seconds back of the race winner.
Healed from injuries of her own, junior Nancy Godsey was the top Falcon in her race, taking third in 22:03. Her teammate, Becky Gabelein, was sixth in 23:19.
In the freshman race, Katy Gordon was the fastest Falcon, making the second-best time on the day for the team with a 21:49. The time was good enough for fifth place.
