Erin Pfundt, left, and Maia Cowan lead a pack of five PHS runners in Klawock Saturday. (Photo by Kelsa Sperl courtesy of PHS Cross Country)
The Petersburg High School girls cross country team took the top four spots and came in first among the four teams at a race in Klawock Saturday. The boys team was second just behind Ketchikan.
The girls team finished well ahead of squads from Ketchikan, Wrangell and Metlakatla.
The Viking girls were led by Maia Cowan who took first in a time of 20 minutes and 50 seconds. Erin Pfundt, Julia Murph and Kendra Coonrad were 2nd, 3rd and 4th. All four times were personal records for those runners. Melanie Chase took seventh and Eva Lenhard came in ninth, also setting a personal best time. The girls nearly had a perfect score, which comes from sweeping the top five spots. Petersburg coach Debby Eddy said she wasn’t surprised by that strong finish.
“Actually I was kindof expecting that to happen and I was glad that it did happen for those girls,” Eddy said. “I was really happy to see some PRs (personal records) with our seniors and happy to see Kendra pull it up too, she went faster than she did last week so. Eva Lenhard had a good PR, that was really good to see cause those girls have been working really, really hard. So seeing that progress is real encouraging.”
Ketchikan beat the Petersburg boys by only three points and Craig took third. Kole Sperl set a personal record with a third place finish. He was the top runner for Petersburg with a time of 18:42. Brennan Skeek placed sixth, Tolin Eddy was seventh, Thomas Durkin ninth, Koren Sperl 11th and Noah Sullivan was 18th.
Petersburg coach Tommy Thompson thought the boys team put in a good effort.
“They’re kinda running as a pack a little bit more, kinda saying they’re not going to let the other guy get away from ‘em and that just makes them a stronger team,” Thompson said. “We actually thought we’d won the boys race. We lost by three points. It was just a matter of one person just being here or there. But it was a super, super effort by these guys 1-8.”
The cross country teams run in Wrangell on Saturday.
