Cross country: Riverside's Moe wins 4A state; Nickelson takes girls title

PASCO — Mead did it one more time. Carl Moe did it for the first time.

The Greater Spokane League dominates cross country but thanks to Moe, not every aspect of it.

Mead won the Class 4A state cross country meet for the third straight year and 11th time in the GSL's string of 13 state titles in a row.

Moe was just as dominant — for a season. The Auburn Riverside senior capped an unbeaten season by becoming the first non-GSL runner to win the individual title since Blanchet's David Gurry in 1990.

"It's a big relief," Moe said after battling Shadle Park's Richie Nelson for all but the last couple hundred meters of the 5,000-meter race.

"I knew if I was there at 2.5, I was there. ... There wasn't too much pressure. In the past, everyone was looking at my results. This year we had the whole team."

Maybe there wasn't pressure but there was doubt, brought on by the windy conditions. Any thought Moe had of running for time was scuttled by the strong wind and he had to settle for a 4-second win over Nelson, finishing in 15 minutes, 36 seconds.

"It went through my mind the whole race, 'What if this? What if that?' But it was OK," Moe said. "My race strategy changed about every 10 minutes on the way over here. I'm glad I did what I did. When it was windy, I decided to take it easy through the first mile and see how it goes."

In the second mile, Nelson, who was pushing the pace, Moe and Mead's Laef Barnes and Evan Garber had separated from the pack. The Mead duo slipped back at about 2.5 miles and then Moe surged past Nelson with maybe 250 meters to go.

"I think I did everything right. It was a good race for me. I came into the race not having any regrets and I still don't," Nelson said. "I take pride in my kick. ... We both kicked, we kind of had matching kicks. I didn't gain on him, he didn't pull away from me. I couldn't make up that one little gap."

Geoff Greer of Mead came in fifth, allowing the Panthers to easily out-distance Eisenhower 73-99. Ferris was third at 101 with Snohomish well back in fourth.

Snohomish girls win

The girls' race was won by Snohomish, and individual honors went to Lake Stevens' Amber Nickelson, who won with a time of 18:26, moving to the front after pacesetter Jamie Geissler of Mead faded. Shannon Bell of Gonzaga Prep was second, six seconds behind Nickelson.

"I was hoping but I wasn't really confident. You've got to have guts to go out like that in this wind," Nickelson said of tracking Geissler.

"At the top of the hill, I saw that she was kind of sliding down and I told myself, 'You can catch her, make one last kick.' Once I caught her, I thought, 'It's all downhill.' "

Bellarmine Prep and the powers from the east were favored, but Snohomish Coach Dan Parker wasn't conceding anything. His Panthers finished with 71 points, six ahead of Bellarmine. Eisenhower was third and Lewis & Clark was fourth.

"We felt we were underrated," he said. "We came in rated fifth in the poll, but polls are polls. We ran most of the season without what was our No. 1 runner at the start."

Katrina Wiseman, the only senior for the Panthers, ran one race before giving in to a stress fracture that hadn't healed from track. She rejoined the team for the league meet. She immediately started running No. 2 and improved every week.

"I don't think people realized we didn't have her and we would get her back," Parker said.

Amanda Stopa, a freshman, led Snohomish by finishing 15th. Wiseman was 21st.