There’s great race days, and then there’s really great race days.
And then there’s the day South Kitsap cross country blazed through its first official 5K race of 2024 just north of Tillamook, Oregon, a race that would end with two new school records along with some of the best times and averages from a single weekend of races in recent memory.
Senior Lauren Laws, the Wolves sole female runner slated for the Elite race at The Mook XC Invite at Alderbrook, had expected to hang with the lead pack of runners for a few minutes, perhaps more. What she had not expected was to cross the finish line with a time that would have netted her second place in the previous season’s state championships.
“It was really crazy,” Laws said. “My coach told me to stay in the top 10, top 15 area for the beginning of the race. I was not expecting the first mile to be as fast as it was or the race for that matter.”
When all was said and done, Laws’ time of 18:05.9 had shattered SK’s previous 5K record of 18:51, set in 2018 by Ashley Sciocchetti, and the course continued to bring out the best of Wolves runners in the boys Elite race.
Junior Isaac Benjamin, coming off a championship-caliber club season in track and field, continued to hit new marks with a time of 15:01.80, breaking Jon Phillips’ 2007 record of 15:42 by over 40 seconds. Seniors Jefferson Smith and Blake Butherus came within striking distance of Phillips’ mark as well, posting sub-17 times that are now the third and seventh-best times in school history.
The Wolves went back to work to win their sole home meet of the year Sept. 27, and if coach Ed Santos needed any validation that his teams were ready to live up to the expectations set by preseason top-ten rankings, both meets were it. “We had a really good track season, and it carried right over to a really good summer,” he said. “Our top-level kids have worked so hard, made huge improvements, and one of the things we preach all the time is doing the little things right: rest, recovery, stretch.”
What made the summer so great was what Santos called “upping the ante” on threshold training, workouts that have runners like Laws realizing just how fast they can go. “It’s been cool to see that we can beat our minds. We did this one workout where we did three miles at threshold pace, and I did it at like 18:30. I was like, ‘I guess I can go a lot faster than I thought I could.’”
“The kids are already seeing this pay huge dividends,” Santos said. “They’re stronger, and they’ve done a fantastic job of putting in the work.”
SK SPSL 5K Scores:
Girls
SK 26 (Laws 18:49, Emma Schmutz 19:05, Noelle DeCrona 21:00, Joan Hampton 21:31, Charlotte Allen 22:21)
Bonney Lake 31
Curtis 75
Boys
SK 16 (Benjamin 15:47, Smith 16:29, Butherus 17:01, Ezekiel Wagner 17:50, Nolan Butler 17:54)
Bonney Lake 48
Curtis 74
