Chico girls, Yreka boys capture NSCIF Cross County titles Chico's Atkins defends title while Etna's Whelan also proves he's the best

By Joseph Shufelberger ER Sports Writer, T.J. Holmes Record Searchlight, edited & photos by Tom Cushman Thursday November 10, 2011

Enta's John Whelan has a slight advantage over Foothill's Tony Meredith and Yreka's top two runners, Tim Williams and Eric Neill early in the second mile's final hill.

COTTONWOOD, CA - Despite being the defending Northern Section champion, an up and down season had Chico High senior Kody Atkins entering Thursday's North Section cross country championships ranked second. Well, on Thursday, Atkins was second to no one. Atkins crushed the home stretch, pulling away from any would-be contenders and won the girls race by nearly 17 seconds to successfully defend her title with a time of 18 minutes, 48 seconds on West Valley High's 3-mile course. "Nineteen minutes is what I was going for," said Atkins, whose time Thursday was good enough for the eighth-best performance all-time at the section meet, besting former Panther Liz Camy's 18:51 in 2000. Among Chico runners, only Hannah Dillard had a better time in the section meet at 18:16 in 2005. She also came up short of what her big sister Hagen did six years ago for Durham (18:40). Otherwise on Thursday, the only runners who had close to as good a day as Atkins were her teammates, as it was another banner day for the Chico program. The Panthers' girls team won the overall and Division III titles, while the boys won the Division III crown as well after finishing second overall. By doing so both teams qualified for the state meet, which will be Saturday, Nov. 26, at Woodward Park in Fresno. "I never thought 1'd be happy to spend my Thanksgiving vacation in Fresno," Chico coach Kevin Girt said, "but that means we made it to state." The path to state this year was made more difficult as a shrinking school census dropped former Division II rivals Chico, Pleasant Valley into Division III with schools from Redding, Oroville, Paradise and Red Bluff. The Panthers still came out on top as the girls won their eighth straight division crown and even more impressively their fourth consecutive overall championship. Atkins has had a hand in all four of those titles, but so to did two of her teammates, seniors Lorena Reed was 15th at 20:17 and Amanda Costa, who rejoined the team last week after a bout of mono, was a much needed 16th at 20:19. Azure Grant, who was ninth overall in 19:56, ran on her third championship team. Closing out the scoring for Chico, was cross country newbee Kelsey Reed, Lorena's cousin with a time of 21:50 to take 39th overall.

One who did not have such a good day was the pre-meet favorite, Oroville's Julie Finn who after contending early on, fell off the pace after cresting Elliot's revenge in the second mile. Finn, a senior who hadn't lost a race to section runners this season and had run 18:46 on the West Valley course in mid October, said her quadriceps and hamstrings tightened up on her early in the race. "It was painful," she said, but she was surprised she qualified for state despite the leg maladies. "1' m excited to get out there and run again." Chico finished with 65 points. West Valley, the Division IV champ, was second at 92. The Enterprise girls team was second in D-III behind Chico and third overall, with the top five Hornets competitors finishing within eight places and 14 seconds of each other. The Hornet leader was Tammey Kramm, who took 21st in 21:02.12. "We ran a little too packed today, but Chico's a strong team. We knew they were going to be tough," Hornets coach Jim Deaver said. University Prep, anchored by sophomore Helen Mino Faukner eighth place finish(19.50) took fourth overall and first in D-V. Pleasant Valley, led by Melanie Hickman's second-straight, fifth-place finish at 19:33 and sophomore teammate Francesca Vecere's sixth-place showing at 19:44, was fifth with 149. For the boys, the favorite entering the championships was Etna junior John Whelan, and he fought off a strong showing from Foothill senior Tony Meredith to finish as the section individual champion in a time of 15:39, the ninth fastest time on the West Valley course. "I'm really impressed with how I ran, because there were so many of us that were so close the whole time," Whelan said. "All five (Meredith, Chamberlen, Williams and Neill all had a lead at some point in the race) were contending for the race, and I knew I had to really kick it into gear to come out of this impressive field. I'm honored to run with all these guys."

Foothill's Meredith (15:52) didn't really make his move until the two-mile mark, where he led Whelan by only a few paces. However, coming down the final big stretch, Whelan proved his meddle pulling ahead of his exhaused rival, who was giving his all in his final north state cross county race in the prep ranks. "It was basically (Whelan) and I left, and I had the lead. I used everything I had, but I didn't have any strength left to keep it up," Meredith said. "It was the hardest race in my life. "I planned on drafting the majority of it, felt OK by the two-mile mark and was hoping I would've had enough energy to finish it, but couldn't. We duked it out until the end, though." A nice close got Paradise's Dylan Chamberlen third (15:57) around Yreka's strong duo Tim Williams (15:58) and Eric Neill (16:12). Chico's Chris Midkiff ended up sandwiched between Williams and a fading Neill to take sixth. Looming star Yreka sophomore Clayton Bunn, closed exceptionally well to take seventh (16:30). The rest of the top ten was filled out by Enterprise's John Collins in eighth (16:32), Shasta's Blake Zufall in ninth (16.34) while Redding Christian senior Jeff Krantz took 10th (16:35). The girls individual qualifiers, who will move on to the state race Nov. 26 in Fresno, are Megan James of Shasta, Melanie Hickman and Francesca Vecere of PV and Oroville's Julie Finn and Rosy Reyes in D-III. In D-IV girls, Central Valley freshman Abby Murch is on her way to state, along with Averie Roberts and Brenna Payne of Gridley. For the D-III boys, Foothill's Meredith, Paradise's Chamberlen, Enterprise's Collins, Shasta's Zufall of Shasta and Landon Woollard, who finished 12th overall in 16:40, are all individual qualifiers not on a team heading to the state race. In D-IV, Central Valley's Austin Murch (16:46), West Valley's Ryan Stockton (22nd at 17:19) and Lassen's Mike McCullough (26th at 17:26) will compete for state. Whelan led the boys from D-V, along with Redding Christian's Krantz, Providence Christian's Tucker Hoffman, who was 29th (17:33) In the open division races, primarily composed of junior varsity runners, proved to be nearly as exciting as the varsity races. In the boys race, Pleasant Valley dropped several runners down from varsity to make a run at the win. Strong teams from Yreka and Chico would have to make adjustments if they were to finish at the top of the podium.

The 2011 NSCIF Championship boys race is underway with the three top teams Yreka, Chico and Shasta all tightly punched after rounding the first turn.

The lead pack a half mile out in the varsity girls race with Oroville's Julie Finn and Paradise's Annie Stratton setting the early pace

Half way through, Pleasant Valley owned the top two spots with a strong contingent of Panthers holding the advantage over a tightly bunched group of Miners. A good close by Yreka made the outcome uncertain as Chico, Yreka runners ended up taking seven of the top ten spots and ten of the first fifteen with Pleasant Valley picking up most of the rest. In the end it came down to a tie breaker as Yreka, Chico tied with 39 points. The Miners came away with the win as their sixth runner was four places ahead of Chico six man. In the girls open race, also run on West Valley's 2.2 mile junior varsity course, it proved to be a battle between Chico and Paradise as highly touted Enterprise pulled three runners off their JV team to run in the varsity race. Paradise's Ali Rank and Jordan Huff moved to the front early and proved to be the class of the field by pulling away for a comfortable 1-2 finish. Chico effort proved to be more methodical than spectacular to claim the win by a 31-39 margin over the Bobcats by placing four ahead of Paradise's third runner.

Chico's Kody Atkins and West Valley's Hannah Dorman pulling away from West Valley freshman Jenna Storms and a fading Julie Finn midway through the second mile.

Chico's Kody Atkins closing in on her second North Section cross country title as her ruthless drive toward the finish gaps West Valley's Hannah Dorman on the course's last long straight away.