Lund-Andersen shines for varsity boys; JV teams dominate in Hayden
—Courtesy photo The Sandpoint JV girls cross country team won last Saturday on a rainy track in Hayden. Pictured from left to right are Liz Kempton, Paige Davidson, Chloe Pierce, Kaycee Rasmussen, Jacqueline Owens, Heather Wallace and Corina Wallace. Not pictured: Mesa Keating, Valerie Wickboldt and Morgan Hogue.
SANDPOINT — Junior harrier Fin Lund-Andersen had his strongest meet of the season, finishing 6th among 127 runners to lead the Bulldog boys to a fifth place finish among 18 teams on Saturday at the Hayden Canyon Invitational.
Lund-Andersen clocked an impressive time of 16:48, followed by Clay Rasmussen in 24th place (17:33), Cole Dillon in 27th place (17:35), Reilly Wolfe in 29th (17:43) and Riley McGinnis (18:15) running another strong race for 44th and the last scoring spot. Story Crossett and Gabriel Merithew were 51st and 52nd for the 6th and 7th slots.
The Bulldog girls varsity was held out of the race to focus on a hard training week with October approaching.
The Sandpoint JV cross country teams took center stage before the varsity races, beating 17 other teams to win both titles. The girls team placed all five scoring running in the top 10 in a dominating showing, led by the 4th place finish of freshman Heather Wallace, who ran a 21:51 over the 5K course to place fourth out of the 78 runners. She was followed by sister Corina Wallace in 7th, Mesa Keating in 8th, Paige Davidson in 9th and Chloe Pierce in 10th.
The girls team score was a 33, beating 2nd place Lincoln County by nine. Three more girls beat the team varsity qualifying standard of 23:30, placing 13 girls under the standard so far this year.
The boys JV was nearly as dominant, winning the meet with a team score of 50, 21 point ahead of 2nd place team The Dalles of Oregon. There were 184 runners in the boys race, and the first place Sandpoint finisher was Sloan Woodward in 8th with a time of 18:57. He was followed by Hyrum Hunsaker in 9th, Kyle Almeida in 10th, Garrett Pierce in 11th, and Dutt Rogers in 14th to round out the top five scorers. Two more boys dropped under the varsity qualifying time of 19:30, so there are now 15 boys under the standard for the year.
Sandpoint will be running again Oct. 1 in Lewiston.
On Friday, Sept. 30, the SHS cross country team will be putting on a Kids Clinic for any and all 4th-6th graders in the district at 3:30 p.m. at the SHS track.