2016 Highland XC Invite Recap
Overview
The Utah XC season is really getting underway now. Highlander marks a big showdown between many of Utah's elite teams and athletes.
Top Three Performances: Joe Benson, Whitney Rich, Hailey Odekirk
Joe Benson backs up his pre-season #25 national ranking, improving on his 4th place 2015 finish to win the Highlander Invitational in 14:39. He is the first athlete to run under 14:40 since Conner Mantz back in 2014. He helped lead Timpanogos to a dominant team win by almost 50 points. Coming off his comfortable season opener at the Premier XC Invite, Benson had a battle on his hands with sophomore Grant Gardner. The finish was decided by less than a second, and proves that Benson is coming into the season ready to compete at a high level.
Whitney Rich owned the girls varsity race. Her winning margin extending to nearly 30 seconds in 17:00. Just like Benson, she was able to post the fastest time of the last three years. For the Bingham senior who has been climbing her way closer to the top of the podium at the state meet over the last three years, this is a great indicator to her early season fitness by starting off with a 40s improvement on her 2015 time.
Hailey Odekirk may be an inexperienced freshman, but proved she can still execute well on her own. Representing Hurricane, she won the freshman girls race in 19:07. Only one freshman athlete at the meet ran faster. Brooke Mashburn from Timpanogos finished 27th in 18:58 competing in the varsity girls race. This makes Odekirk's time even more impressive considering that she ran solo.
Photo: Skyridge XC
Race of the Day: Boys Varsity 5K
With the talented group of teams and individuals, the boys race didn't disappoint. Grant Gardner's narrow second place finish gave his team a big boost to finish in 3rd place by just nine points. Ryan Raff is largely on his own this season after much of the Lehi team left to compete for the newly created Skyridge high school. Raff proved it wont affect his season with a big 14:48 to finish 3rd. Skyridge didn't run their full varsity team on Thursday. Top finisher Michael Hinckley crossed in 15:28 for 15th. Also performing well as a team was the squad from Olympus. Along with Timpanogos, they were the only two teams to score three athletes in the top 15.
Girls Roundup
Three other girls joined Whitney Rich under 18:00 in the varsity girls race including American Fork's Sara Musselman. After setting the goals high in preseason, Musselman leads American Fork to a convincing victory with four scorers finishing in the top 25. Kaitlin Struthers produced a great result for the new Skyridge team. She finished 4th just behind the leaders in 17:46.