Olympia heads into district meet fresh off a 4A SPSL title
Building a successful team in an individual sport like cross country can be a fragile process, dependent on the choices and progress of each runner.
Olympia High School’s current team is a perfect example.
When the Bears ran to their first league championship in coach Jesse Stevick‘s 11 years at the helm, winning the Class 4A South Puget Sound League meet last week at Fort Steilacoom, their pack wasn’t anything that could have been predicted a year ago.
Senior Sam Fleckenstein, Olympia’s top runner at the state meet last fall, has become a collegiate recruit in the sport of crew, competing for the Olympia Area Rowers and now focuses on that sport.
He ran more than a minute slower at the 4A SPSL meet than he had at state in 2017 and finished out of the scoring.
On the other hand, freshman Ethan Coleman shaved a minute and a half off his 5,000-meter personal best in 15 days, running a 16 minutes, 50.7 seconds to become the Bears’ fourth highest finisher in the league meet.
“The league’s been really tough,” Stevick said. “We were marking South Kitsap going in, then Bellarmine came on strong.”
The Bears claimed the title with 60 points, with Bellarmine Prep next at 63, and South Kitsap close at 67. The Lions’ Ben Sherman won the individual title in 15:39.6, but it was the runner right behind him, Olympia junior Connor Griffith, who has made the biggest difference for the Bears since transferring from Great Bend High School in Kansas midway through the 2017-18 school year.
As a sophomore at Great Bend, he finished eighth in the Kansas 5A meet and third in the NXR Heartland Regional. Then his dad, Troy, a district manager for WalMart, was transferred to the Olympia area.
Griffith arrived in time last spring to reach the 4A state track meet in the 1,600. He’s found one geographical difference to his liking.
“It’s a lot hillier here, which has improved my running,” he said. “There’s also definitely a lot more competition up here. It makes each race more competitive. That pushes me, which is a very good thing.”
His runner-up finish behind Sherman in the 4A SPSL meet was something of a surprise. His time of 15:55.2 was far off his personal best of 15:29.2, established when he finished ninth in the prestigious Stanford Invitational in California last month.
“He’s finished ahead of Ben a few times, so he wasn’t happy,” Stevick said. “But he didn’t get mad and think about going out and running 20 miles.”
Griffith realized he overworked before and during the early stages of the league meet.
“My plan was to win the race,” he said. “But, I trained too hard and went out to too big of a lead at the start.”
“Connor’s got great ability and a desire to be the best he can be,” Stevick said. “He’s also level-headed enough to know when to push and when to rest.”
With the Bears easing their workouts into postseason mode before Saturday’s 4A West Central District meet at Chambers Creek Regional Park in University Place, Griffith has a new plan.
“I’m focused on sleeping more, eating correctly. All the little things,” he said. “We’re going to be tapering this week so hopefully my legs will start feeling better.”
At the league meet, just 90 seconds separated the Bears’ first and fifth runners.
“(Senior) Tilahun Castro and Ethan Coleman had great races,” Stevick said.
Castro cracked the top 10, finishing sixth in 16:19.9. Max Barnes was 13th in 16:34.8, and Ben Kosa was 20th in 16:51.2.
“Ben Kosa put in a lot of hard work over the summer,” Stevick said.
In addition to Fleckenstein, junior Jack Van Nuys ran out of the scoring for Olympia. With seven runners moving ahead in the postseason, the Bears can be more focused in their training as they strive to peak at the state meet in Yakima on Nov. 3.
“We’ll decrease mileage, work more on speed. We can talk about strategy and which opponents to stick with during races,” Stevick said. “But, really, the hay is in the barn.”