Vashon High School hosted a cross-country meet on Thursday, when the Seattle Christian, Cascade Christian and Eatonville teams all came to the Island to race the Pirates on their home course.

The 3.1-mile course wound through the high school, middle school and elementary school campuses and included a section of trail recently cleared by the Vashon Forest Stewards.

In the girls race, Maddie Groen finished third as she covered the 3.1 miles in 22:54.

Other top finishers for the Pirates were Natalie VanDevanter in sixth and Callan Foster in eighth place.

Life Christian was the only team with enough girls to officially score as a team, and it took first by default with a perfect score of 15.

For the boys race, the Eatonville Cruisers swept the first five places and also won with a perfect team score of 15 points. The Pirates finished in second of the four teams with 48 points. Vashon’s Landon Summers finished sixth overall; Olin Nespor took ninth place and Nathan Williams took 10th .

Thursday’s meet included a 1.5-mile middle school race, where eighth-grader Jeffrey Parrish, representing McMurray Middle School, was the overall winner with a time of  9:24. Also representing McMurray in this meet were Ezra Alledge, who finished in 10:15 and Abe Vanselow, who finished in 11:55.

The McMurray boys team took second in the meet with 18 points. Seattle Christian took first with 13, and Life Christian was third with 21. None of the middle schools had a complete girls team.

 

— Kevin Ross is a cross-country coach at Vashon High School.

 

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