- Meet Coverage: Complete results and video interviews (taken via phone) posted
- Photos By Barbara Moore
Meet Summary
A warm evening at West Orange High School set the stage for the Metro Conference West Championships on Wednesday. To start the meet off, a combined JV race was held that features both boys and girls. In first for the boys was Olympia’s Kevin Knox with a time of 17:47.81. To demonstrate the amazing depth of Olympia’s team, the top 8 finishers for the JV boys’ race were all from Olympia High School and they all went under 20 minutes, the only 8 in this race to do so. Leading for the girls was Mason Kite from Olympia with her winning time of 22:48.85.
Following the combined JV race, the varsity girls lined up at the start line and prepared for their speedy trip around the forests and parks that make up West Orange High. Starting out strongly, it was clear that Dr. Phillips’ Bridget Blake went out to win the race. She easily did that as she held a solid lead over the rest of the competition for the length of the course. Blake’s winning time was 18:33.08, about 4 second faster than her winning time from last year at this same meet. Following her finish came the Olympia pack that ran together for the beginning of the race to push their runners into place for the upcoming district, regional, and state meets. Emily Headley drove the pack with her team leading time of 18:50.60. This pack running allowed Olympia to go 2-3-4-5-9, giving them the win, with a team average of 19:23.75, over Dr. Phillips 23-34.
After the impressive performances by the varsity girls, the varsity boys’ race set off on the West Orange course. At the beginning, Olympia’s Mitchell Moore and Nick Lehman pushed each other, but after half a mile, it was clearly the Mitchell Moore show. He was in the lead and never even got close to losing it. Moore put up and impressive first place time of 15:55.03, followed by teammates Lehman, Ben Watson, and Daniel Dey, who finished 2nd, 3rd, and 4th respectively. Olympia’s 1-2-3-4-8 team places allowed them to easily take the team title over Jones High School 18-96. Olympia’s team average was an incredible 16:35.54.
This Metro Conference West Championships was a chance for teams to see where they stand heading toward their district meets. It turned into a chance for Olympia to display the strength of both their girls and boys teams. Anticipation is running high for the postseason and we will soon find out which teams are up to the challenges and which teams will fall behind on their journeys to the State Championships.
Third Party Coverage