Dayton's Brady Heusser finishes the Division 1-A boy's race at Rancho San Rafael Park Saturday.
RENO — Elaina Marchegger continued what has turned into a postseason breakout and made it look easy in the process Saturday at the NIAA State Cross County Championships.
The Sierra Lutheran High School junior cruised to victory with a personal best time in the Division III/IV girls race, and the Falcons earned the runner-up team trophy on an warm autumn day at Rancho San Rafael Park.
In the Division I girls race, Douglas sophomore Megan Ruffo ran to sixth-place and the Tigers finished sixth as a team, while Carson sophomore Josefina Ortiz-Osty took 20th-place.
John Munyan also placed third in the Division I boys race to pace Douglas to fourth-place as a team. Sierra Lutheran’s boys team also finished third in their Division III/IV race.
Marchegger’s time of 20 minutes, 12 seconds was a personal best for 5,000 meters at altitude (she ran 20:11.9 at the Stanford Invitational in September) and was the fourth-fastest among all girls in three division races. It was also 13 seconds faster than her winning time one week before at the regional championships.
And those two victories represent Marchegger’s first cross country victories in two cross country seasons. In this race, she finished seven seconds ahead of North Tahoe junior Quinn Lehmkuhl.
“Physically, she’s been in great shape all along,” Sierra Lutheran coach Steve Kubel said. “The difference now is she is learning that she can do more … that she really can run with the front runners.”
Marchegger surged to the front of the lead pack at the mile mark and never trailed again. By the two-mile mark, she had opened up a 20-meter lead on a course still soggy due to a snow storm that passed through the Sierra earlier in the week.
“All I can say is it’s just purely God,” said Marchegger, who formerly competed in rodeo before she turned to cross country in 2014. “There’s only so much work you can put in before you have to turn the reins over to God.
“I do have more confidence now … all the support I’ve had from my teammates, coaches and family has really helped,” she added.
Clare Davison and Taylor Davison also placed ninth and 10th with respective times of 22:32 and 22:59, Emily McNeely placed 12th in 23:18 and Emma Herron was 17th in 23:58.
North Tahoe packed its five scoring runners into the top eight to outdistance Sierra Lutheran, 22-44.
Meanwhile, Carson’s Ortiz-Osty ran a time of 21:02 to close out a successful rookie season.
“She had a good year,” coach Pete Sinnott said. “She hadn’t been a competitor before, but she got steadily better all season. Today she went out too slow, last week she went out too fast, so she’s still learning how to run in big races like this.”
Sinnott noted runners had to negotiate their way through two stretches of the course that were still soggy from this week’s snow.
“There were a couple of places where it was pretty squishy, so I think the course was slower than last week,” he said. “It might have added 15 seconds to your time today, plus it takes a lot of energy to get through there, but then again, it was a perfect day weather-wise and the competition was stronger, so those were benefits.”
Ruffo earned a spot on the medal podium after she moved up two positions in the final half-mile to finish in a time of 20:24, one second faster than her effort one week before in the region race.
Madison Cote also finished 37th (21:49), Lizzy Byrne 45th (22:10), Leslee Alaniz 46th (22:10) and Bailey Gansberg 57th (22:40) to complete the team scoring for Douglas.
Junior Karina Haymore won the individual gold medal in 19:39 to lead Centennial to its second straight girls team championship. Haymore won the state track 800-meter title last spring (2:10.89).
Munyan ran a personal best time of 17:01 for Rancho San Rafael Park to place third. Kaleb Morris also placed 12th (17:28), Lars Ponsness was 25th (17:54), while Danner Hillman ran 18:31 and freshman Patrick Voss 18:32 for the Tigers. Henry Weisberg won the individual gold medal as he led McQueen to its second straight state team title.
Sierra Lutheran’s boys were led by freshman Jared Marchegger with a fourth-place run of 17:42, while Richard McNeely placed sixth (17:58), Steven Flanagan ran 19:46, Tyler Waite 20:35 and Daniel Barulich 21:01.