Laurel - Some could argue yesterday's meet at Meridian High School had by far the best weather all year long as far as no rain, no wind, and it wasn't terribly cold. We all spoke to soon when the 3200 was starting as it began to drizzle a little, but none the less, multiple Whatcom County standouts were at their best once again.
Hutchins Doesn't Stop in 1600
Lynden's Tate Hutchins went out like a bullet once again in the boy's 1600 race as he crushed the field running winning in a personal best time of 4:24.
Hutchins came into the race with a 25 second separation between him and the 2nd place runner. Hutchins goal was to break the Lynden High School record of 4:21, but fell short of 3 seconds.
Hutchins first half of the race was in 2:10, on pace for a 4:20 1600, but then ran a 2:14 on his last half.
Teammate Carson VanCleve finished in 2nd for the Lions with a personal best of 5:03.46. Nico Johnson rounded up the top 3 running 5:08.78.
Nooksack's Harlan Wins 2 More 1600, 3200
Nooksack senior Alyce Harlan won both the 1600 and 3200 taking her season win total to 10 after running 5:46.3 and 12:45.25. Harlan wasn't at full strength as she was dealing with some sickness that has been going around the county.
Brooke DeBeeld of Nooksack placed 2nd behind her teammate running 5:49.6. in the 1600. Both DeBeeld and Harlan were running with other each for 3 laps before Harlan took full command of the race.
Meridian's Emily Schneider ran a season best time, 6:04.58 to finish in 3rd in the 1600, while Kayley Betancourt finished 2nd in the 3200 with a time of 13:27.46. Betancourt also ran a personal best time earlier in the 1600 in 6:10.27.
Lynden Sophomore Wins First Ever 800
Multiple PR's were ran in the boys 800 yesterday, but none stood out more than Lynden's Isaiah Ellis, as he goes on to win in 2:04.9, an 11 second drop from his previous best 800 time.
Multiple personal best times were ran yesterday in the boy's 800 race, but none of them stood out more then Lynden's Isaiah Ellis winning time of 2:04.9, 11 seconds better then his previous best 800 time.
Ellis, who won last weeks Cheney Invite 1600, came into the race with no time and was not seen as an immediate factor of the race. As soon as the gun went off, the young sophomore blew away the field winning by 7 seconds.
Mount Baker's Peter Adams ran 2:11.14 to place 2nd. He improves by 4 seconds for his 800 time.
Lynden's TJ Vanderyacht ran 2:12.17 for 3rd, beating out Blaine's Trevor Freeland by .57 tenths of a second.
Van Den Top Appears to be Back at Strength
Meridian Senior Ashlee Van Den Top looked like her old self from the previous seasons winning the girl's 800 in a season best time of 2:26.82.
Van Den Top ran against Nooksack's Harlan in a battle of the 1A's top girl's 800 runner. Both took the first lap in 71 seconds, with Van Den Top in a slight lead after lap 1.
From the get go, Harlan and Van Den Top were already testing each other on lap 1 as neither girl wanted to take the lead.
Midway through lap 2, Harlan took the lead with 200 meters to go, but Van Den Top reacted and took the lead back and all she could see in front of her was the finish line as she was on to victory.
Harlan ran a personal best 2:29.3 in the 800 to finish in 2nd. This also goes along with her 2 wins for the day. McKenna Holz of Meridian finished 3rd for the Lady Trojans with a season best time of 2:36.56.
Boy's 3200 Highlights Meet
The race that many fans don't stay for at the end were in for a treat last night as 7 of the top distance runners in the county went at last night in the boy's 3200 race.
Meridian's Abbas Theophilus, Kenny Barnes, Jaskaran Dhatt, and Nathan Schneider went up against Lynden's Roscoe Perry and Nooksack's Logan Clabaugh and Nate Snow.
From the get go, this shaped up to be the race of the year in the Northwest Conference. All 7 runners created a huge pack to start the race and ran very consistent laps from 75-77 seconds to run a 5:02-5:05 first mile. Meridian's top runners traded off each lap to stay at the same pace for all their 400's.
The pack started to stretch away on the fifth lap when Nooksack's Snow fell off midway, but Clabaugh and Lynden's Perry were able to hang on.
With one lap to go, the Meridian boy's were on pace to all break 10 minute but it would be Theophilus who would be the closet to break the barrier. Coming down the homestretch, Theophilus was closing in full throttle as huffed and puffed the final 100.
Immediately crossing the finish line, he lets out a huge "grunt" of excitement winning the race in a time of 10:03.9, a massive 15 second P.R. Schneider finished in 2nd with a 1 second P.R. of 10:05.12, while Lynden's Perry came from behind to claim the 3rd spot in a personal best time of 10:06.37.
Meridian's Dhatt and Barnes ran 10:07.32 (4th) and 10:11.68 (5th), while Nooksack's Clabaugh and Snow ran 10:16.13 (6th) and 10:38.44 (7th).
For more results from the Whatcom County League Meet, check out: https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/MeetResults.aspx?Meet=330292&show=all