SPARKS - It's no secret that Carson High School's Shanna Sparks is the individual runner to beat this fall in Northern 4A girls cross country. After Friday afternoon, it's no secret that the Senators' girls are a team to reckon with.
Even with Sparks, the 4A state meet runner-up as a freshman last year, sitting out due to illness, the Senators outdistanced rival Reno to win the girls division at the Reed Invitational. The win was significant considering it came in the first conference meet of the season in which team scoring was kept.
"We were wondering how well we could do without Shanna," Carson coach Jason Macy said. "We knew we'd be close, but to pull this off was phenomenal.
"We have a group that's been working hard. It's going to be hard to hid them now."
Carson beat Reno by a 51-57 margin, led led by a pack of four that ran 61 seconds apart. Freshman Cassia Roth placed third by running 22 minutes, 9 seconds over Reed's 5,000-meter course. Sarah Shaw was close behind in seventh (27:27), followed by Meghan Zahnter in 11th (23:04), Amy Martin 16th (23:10) and Lindsay Dorio in 24th (23:58). Candance Beam also ran 26:23 and Heather Beaudette 27:06 for the Senators.
Karen DeMartini of Reno won the race with a 21:15 clocking, followed by Abigail Parker of Galena in 21:36.
On the boys side, Daryl Nourse placed second individually to lead Carson to second-place in the team standings. Reno scored 29 points to run away with first-place while Carson edged defending zone and state champion South Tahoe 122-135 for second-place.
Chad Sanada of Galena won the race in 17:42, followed by Nourse in 17:54.
Freshman Jeff Martin finished 23rd (19:28), sophomore Andrew Pederson (19:37), Jeff Young 39th (20:04) and Jose Banuelos 40th (20:05) to round out Carson's team scoring. Brian Rebholtz also ran 20:55 and freshman Brett Anderson 21:48 for the Senators.