EUGENE — Ten weeks ago in Philomath’s season-opening cross-country meet, freshman Cassidy Smart had a solid high school debut with a top-10 finish.
Although the course was just 3 kilometers in length, Smart showed her running potential to onlookers that afternoon in Monmouth. Little did anyone know that in 2-1/2 months time, she would finish as the school’s top individual runner to help the Warriors girls cross-country program win their second straight state title and 10th overall.
Gallery: PHS girls cross-country at 4A Championships (Nov. 9, 2024)
A collection of photos from Philomath High’s girls cross-country appearance at the 4A State Championships in Eugene on Saturday.
“They were challenged a little closer than we expected — a couple of kids had tough races — but we were deep enough to come through,” PHS coach Joe Fulton said Saturday in Eugene after the team received its latest trophy. “They’re happy … there’s a lot of seniors on the team but our top runner was a freshman.”
And that freshman would be Smart. Despite working through knee issues during the season, Smart never finished outside of the top 10 in any race. In Saturday’s 4A finale, she placed 10th with a time of 19:34.2.
“I really like the course … and I liked the weather a lot, too — that helped,” Smart said while cooling down after the race and before taking the medal stand..
Smart approached her personal best on the Lane Community College course, missing her top 5K time by just 8.5 seconds. She set that a 2-1/2 weeks ago on the fast Crystal Lake Sports Park course in Corvallis.
La Grande junior Brooke Perry set the winning pace and ended up with a victory of 16.4 seconds over the runner-up. Smart came out conservatively and was running in 12th through the first kilometer.
“I tried to speed up on the second because I usually fade back and it costs me some places so I just tried to speed up a little bit this time,” Smart said.
She moved up from 12th to eighth on the second kilometer and maintained that position until the final stretch when a couple of runners passed her up to knock her down to 10th.
Senior Adele Beckstead, a stellar runner for the PHS program over the past four years, struggled in the race compared to her first three years in Eugene when she placed seventh, fifth and ninth.
This time around, she settled for 16th with a time of 20:09.0.
“It was a little harder today — I probably started a bit too fast,” Beckstead said. “But I’m still happy with how hard everyone worked. It’s exciting to win another (state title) because you just see all the hard work pay off for the team.”
Philomath finished first by 13 points over runner-up Klamath Union. In addition to Smart and Beckstead, the other three runners contributing to the point total were senior Melea Lattin (22nd, 20:30.5), junior Lucy King (23rd, 20:31.1) and senior Hallie Morrison (34th, 21:06.9).
“I wasn’t able to run a super fast time but my goal was to score and I got top five (on the team) so that was something I was happy about,” Morrison said. “It’s definitely a hard course — a couple of short, steep uphills are really hard and there’s tough competition.”
Philomath finished 4A runner-up in 2021 and 2022 and has now taken first place each of the past two seasons. Next year, the Warriors will attempt to become 4A’s first three-peat girls champion since Siuslaw nearly two decades ago.
This year’s feat is the first time Fulton as a girls cross-country coach has won back-to-back titles since he took over the program in the 1990s. Paul Mariman was the coach when the Warriors last won two straight — and actually, they won three straight from 1988-90.
“The girls train together so they know each other and that makes a difference,” Fulton said while the girls had fun together posing for team photos with the trophy. “They’re good kids.”
Morrison said winning another state title felt great.
“I feel like all of my hard work over the past six months has paid off,” she said. “It was really fun that we were all able to run together as a team because that was kind of our goal. That was cool that we managed to do that.”
Freshman Reagan Nuno (36th, 21:15.1) and senior Hanna McDaniel (42nd, 21:34.5) rounded out the varsity entry list for the Warriors. Both Nuno and McDaniel finished in the top half of the field with 100 entrants competing.
