The starting line at Saturday’s Region V Cross Country Running Championships in Ketchikan will be roomy.
Only seven boys and seven girls make up each team in the Division I (large school) and Division II (small school) races to take place at the Ward Lake Recreation Area.
That means approximately three-quarters of JDHS’ exceedingly large team are already done for the season.
Sadie Tuckwood, Anna Iverson, Jasmin Holst, Miriam Stitz, Sosan Monsef, Katie McKenna and Linnea Lentfer are what’s left for the girls.
Arne Ellefson-Carnes, Clem Taylor-Roth, Shadrach Stitz, Tim McKenna, Tim Degener, Ronan Davies and Max Dapcevich are what’s left of the boys.
That’s one way to look at it at least.
JDHS cross country coaches Merry Ellefson and Tristan Knutson-Lombardo say the teammates not running this weekend — especially senior captains Maddie York and Gillian Smith — are still making an impact.
“They’re the girls’ captains and they have been on varsity through this year,” Ellefson said of York and Smith. “So that’s the complicatedness of sport but it also speaks to what they’ve done and the team they’ve created over the last few years. Their dedication has grown the girl’s team to 29 girls.”
Ellefson says she can’t remember a larger girls squad in her 16 years of coaching.
Twenty-seven Crimson Bears girls ran in the Aug. 26 Capital Invitational, 17 in the Sept. 2 Haines Invitational and 26 in the Sept. 9 Wrangell Invitational.
And while it’s not unusual for underclassmen to make varsity in place of seniors, this year’s team is entirely freshmen and sophomores.
“It’s a young, talented, hard-working team and with a bit of competition for the slots on that team,” Ellefson said. “That really bodes well for the weekend as well as our future. Of course, we’re led and inspired by Sadie but everyone else is working hard and working to close the gap. You saw that happen with Jasmin and Anna last week and same thing with Miriam and Sosan.”
Tuckwood has won all four of the meets she ran in this season. She ran her personal best of 18 minutes, 10 seconds at the Palmer Invitational that took place the same weekend as the Haines Invitational.
She’s led the way for the rest of the underclassmen, such as Holst, who finished fourth overall at last weekend’s Sitka Invitational.
“We’re seeing her run where (Merry and I) were thinking she would be running,” Knutson-Lombardo said of Holst. “It’s nice to see her meet that expectation and really run hard and … make us a really strong girl’s team.”
JDHS sophomore Katie McKenna, who didn’t run her freshman year, has also set high expectations for herself. She finished 16th in Sitka with a 22:24 and is looking to drop even more time in Ketchikan.
“I’m really looking forward to it because I have a lot of confidence in our team and all of our runners because we work as a pack,” McKenna said.
The Division I boys teams of JDHS, TMHS and Ketchikan run at 11:45 a.m. on Saturday. The Division I girls race at 1:15 p.m.
JDHS has swept the large school titles at the regional meet in each of last three seasons. Look for results Saturday evening on the Juneau Empire website.
Correction: An eariler version of this article incorrectly omitted two runners from the varsity JDHS team: Linnea Lentfer and Ronan Davies. The article has been updated to reflect the change. The Empire regrets the error.
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nolin.ainsworth@juneauempire.com.
