Wood River High School junior Ashley Rendahl was feeling good enough Thursday to clock the fastest time in the 3.1-mile girls' varsity race of the Salmon Invitational meet.
A winner by eight seconds, Rendahl (22:31) out-raced a couple of Hillcrest runners, Nicole Neal (22:39) and Holly Hansen (22:57). Rendahl's running partner Tess Dahlgren (23:03), another Wolverine junior, placed seventh less than a minute behind Rendahl.
The Salmon Golf Course layout incorporated some steep hills on a nearby trail system that made the course more difficult. And the hills suited the 32 Wolverine runners in the field of 65 girls and 122 boys.
Wood River co-coach Joel Zellers said, "Ashley totally blew away the field. She was in third place going up the first hill and then came flying back down the hill in first place and just cranked it after that.
"Really, not one runner from any of the schools could keep up with our kids on the hills. If we had done better on the flats, we would have done exceptionally well at Salmon."
Dahlgren had just returned from a 10-day cross-country skiing camp in Canada. Although she was well equipped for long distances, she didn't have enough sprinting power in short stretches and settled for seventh, said Zellers. Rosie Gilchrist (23:20), a promising freshman, cracked the top 10 in 10th place.
Wood River as a girls' team placed third of six full teams with 63 points, just eight points behind Idaho Falls (55) and 30 points behind Hillcrest (33) of Idaho Falls. Hillcrest placed its top girls 2-3-8-9-11.
Gerardo Garcia (18:41), a Wood River sophomore, continued his strong running with a sixth-place finish behind the winning time of Hillcrest's Ben Larsen (17:10). Zellers said, "Gerardo ran well although he had a little difficulty on the last one-and-a-half miles."
The Hillcrest boys captured the top five positions to finish with the best team score possible, 15 points counting the placings of a team's top five runners. Idaho Falls (54) was second and Wood River (93) third out of the eight boys' teams.
Wood River and Community School thinclads travel to the Twin Falls Classic Thursday, Oct. 6 at 1 p.m. at Canyon Springs Golf Club, Twin Falls.
In other running news, the Wood River Middle School cross country team edged out Burley 61-72 to win last Wednesday's 1.5-mile footrace at O'Leary Junior High School in Twin Falls. It was the second time that the Wolverines captured first place this season.
Top finishers were Austin Cruz 4th, Tyler Davis 6th, James Paris 9th and Max Bates 29th. Rounding out Wood River runners were Chris Clark, Luke Poster, Jordan Niedrich, Trevor Davidson, Jonathon Hobbes, Hunter VanBremer, Zach Israel, Nick Dobie, Brandon Beall and Ben Herren.
Salmon Invitational results for the high school runners:
Boys' varsity: 1—Ben Larsen (Hillcrest) 17:10. 6—Gerardo Garcia 18:41. 19—Pedro Morales 19:30. 28—J.D. Hill 20:09. 36—Connor Caraluzzi 20:21. 37—Bryce Moulton 20:22. 47—Nick Purdy 20:49. 51—Cole Wells 21:02. 59—Joe Zeman 21:25. 64—Drew Anderson 21:42. 67—Zach Thornton 21:44. 70—Zack Lowry 21:54. 71—Kyle Niedrich 21:57 and Sam Colesworthy 21:57. 74—Rob Paris 22:03. 76—Ted Elgee 22:07. 94—Clay Johnson 23:20. 97—Daniel Henry 23:26. 101—Greg LeBlanc 23:44. 104—Brad Dobie 23:54. 105—Brandon Baertshi 24:11. 112—Hans Hansen 25:07. 113—John Davidson 25:24. 115—Josh Ricsi 25:54 (122 runners).
Girls' varsity: 1—Ashley Rendahl 22:31. 7—Tess Dahlgren 23:03. 10—Rosie Gilchrist 23:20. 21—Maddie Cordovano 25:44. 30—Trisha McLaughlin 26:29. 31—Meggie Rose 26:31. 32—Georgia Thies 26:44. 53—Aimee Loudenslager 29:43. 61—Kortnee King 30:54 (65 runners).
