In the first of our 3 post-season meets for our varsity squad, our TEAM showed that they are ready for the competition ahead. Overall, our athletes walked away with 13 personal bests, 8 All-Kingco individual performances, an individual runner-up finish, a second place team finish and a first place team finish.

Starting with our girls, who took care of business in a big way. Their squad was led by senior Kate Yahn (4th, 18:14.9, First Team All-Kingco) and junior Jane Harig (6th, 18:24.5, First Team All-Kingco) — along with junior Clara Tubbs (13th, 19:38.7, Second Team All-Kingco), sophomore Riley Eberhardt (15th, 19:43.8, PR), senior Julia Ryan (23rd, 20:15.6), senior Anna Jensen (36th, 20:38.5, Season’s Best), and junior Giada Oliva (43rd, 20:56.8, PR) — all of whom ran outstanding team races. In what was one of the closest Kingco Championships in many years, our Quah Girls won the Kingco team title with a score of 61 points to Eastlake’s 63- and Mount Si’s 64-point efforts. This is an incredible way to start the momentum of our post-season, and absolutely something for us to build on top of!

Onto our boys, who put up about as good a fight as they could have. Going up against #1 ranked Eastlake, our squad raced, and raced well. The Eagles were led by junior Brennen Rickey (2nd, 15:40.4, First Team All-Kingco), sophomore Connor Rickey (4th, 15:54.5, First Team All-Kingco, PR), senior Ben Konopka (6th, 15:55.8, First Team All-Kingco), sophomore Elliot McIntosh (8th, 16:05.8, Second Team All-Kingco, PR), senior Jonathan Liu (13th, 16:26.4, Second Team All-Kingco, Season’s Best) and sophomore Henry Tait (16:32.5, PR) — all running amazing races and finishing a close second place as a team to Eastlake (28-33). While a Kingco trophy didn’t return home with us for the boy’s team, this performance gives us an incredible point to take off from.

Links to full results are here, while links to photos taken by Ken Fischer are here.

Both of our teams qualified for the district meet, which will be held at Lakewood HS on October 29th.

Fly Eagles, Fly!

In what became somewhat of a Kingco Preview meet — where almost every school in our conference raced on the same course over a two day stretch — Issaquah reigned supreme in the first 5K race of the season. Up against Redmond, North Creek, Bothell, Woodinville, Mt Si, and Newport — Issaquah won 3 of the 4 contested races and notched 3 individual wins.

First race of the day was the varsity girls, led by senior Kate Yahn (18:21.79) who won the race over Bothell’s Lauren Hoyt. This was a near-best effort for Kate, which came at last year’s PNW Showcase in late-November — nearly PRing in September bodes well for what’s to come! Juniors Jane Harig (3rd, 19:34.53) and Clara Tubbs (6th, 20:08.16) came across next, while seniors Anna Jensen (11th, 21:06.97) and Julia Ryan (13th, 21:13.91) rounded out our scoring top 5. These incredible efforts from our girl’s team was enough to secure the overall team victory over Redmond 34-35, and securing the league meet victory over Woodinville and North Creek.

Next up were our varsity boys, led by senior Ben Konopka (16:06.46) who also won the race for Issaquah, finishing with junior teammate Brennen Rickey (2nd, 16:08.36) and ahead Redmond’s Zachary Leader. Not only is this Ben’s second individual cross country win (first dating back to October 15th, 2019), but it is also a 30-second PR from last fall AND the fastest 5Km time in 4A state rankings thus far — a testament to the hard work he and his teammates have put in over the summer! Rounding out our scoring 5 were sophomores Connor Rickey (4th, 16:28.95), Elliot McIntosh (5th, 16:36.58, PR), and Henry Tait (11th, 17:08.49, PR). This totaled to 23-53 over Redmond, sealing a dominate league performance in our first full-distance race of the season.

Onto our JV girls, who also raced incredibly well, led by junior Giada Oliva (2nd, 21:22.98), senior Ellie Roberts (4th, 22:00.59), freshman Amelia Ryan (8th, 22:47.34, PR), sophomore Ava Gonzalez (9th, 23:12.01, PR), and junior Mackenzie Bice (10th, 23:16.42). These tenacious ladies finished 2nd to Redmond’s squad 26-33, and we are so excited to see the continued development of this incredible group.

The evening of races concluded with our JV boys, whose performance can only be described as a “wall of yellow” — as the eagles secured 6 of the top 7 spots to secure a perfect score of 15 over Redmond’s 75 point effort. Senior Ty Lauritzen finished first (17:28.25) followed by sophomore Alex Yahn (17:29.55, PR), senior Hayden Stowe (17:41.36), junior Elle Miller (17:49.32, PR), and sophomore Ben Lucas (17:50.88, PR) to round out the scoring 5. This was an awesome effort by these athletes to set us up well for the future!

Full results from the meet are here. Photos by Ken Fischer are linked here.

Next week begins the next phase of our season, where we have invitationals each Saturday for 3 weekends. Issaquah will host Skyline September 21st at Yellow Lake (girls first at 4:30), and then we will split the team on Saturday the 24th, with a group attending Nike Portland XC at Blue Lake Regional Park (Championship races at 11:15am) and a group racing at Kings Cross Invite, hosted by Kings HS (races begin at 1pm).

Fly Eagles, Fly!

In an early meeting with a late season foe, Issy took on Redmond’s Mustangs and Eastlake’s Wolves for our first Kingco meeting of the season. Eastlake’s two-mile home course was the set the scene in the midst of some of our toughest training. During the race, we saw every single Eagle who raced put up a season’s best in the two mile distance — which we have now raced three times — as well as 2 individual victories across the three races.

Beginning with our girls, who raced an incredible strategic race, led by senior Kate Yahn (11:25.4), who finished in a 1-2 photo finish with Eastlake’s Sally Roos. Closely followed by junior Jane Harig (11:47.2), who unleashed a kick to pass 3 athletes over the closing meters of the race for 4th place. Also scoring for Issaquah was junior Clara Tubbs (11:58.7, 8th), senior Julia Ryan (12:41.9, 17th), and senior Anna Jensen (12:42.0, 18th). To note, freshman Kennedy Fullmer put up an incredible 11-minute personal best, running 19:33.1, an incredible showing of the true grit of our team. Issaquah ladies finished third amongst the teams, but exhibited many positives we look to capitalize on as the season progresses.

On to the varsity boys, who were led by sophomore Connor Rickey, who ran an incredible time of 9:21.8 for second place in the two mile distance. Tagging along was senior Ben Konopka (9:33.3) for 5th place and junior Brennen Rickey for 7th (9:45.8). Rounding out the top five were sophomores Elliot McIntosh (10:12.6, 11th) and Henry Tait (10:15.1, 12th) — both of whom unleashed monster kicks in the final meters of the race to catch multiple athletes. Issy boys finished second in the team standings to Eastlake (27-38), an amazing show of progress we look to capitalize on more as the season progresses.

Our JV contingent, led by senior Ryan Welsh (10:54.3, 1st), also showed enormous growth from the previous race to now. This race also saw our top freshman performer of the day, Anay Dhamanker, running a time of 10:55.7, which was good for 2nd overall in that race. rounding out the scoring 5 were senior Josh Goble (11:13.3, 4th), breakout race for sophomore Toren Garcia (11:15.3, 5th), and junior Ryan Heuchert (11:15.5, 6th). This put the team results for Issy’s junior varsity squad in the W column, scoring 18-49 over Redmond.

Link to results here. Link to Ken Fischer’s photo album here.

Issaquah will be going north to St. Edwards State Park on Wednesday, September 14th for our third official competition of the season. This will be our first full 5km of the season, where we will be racing Woodinville, Mt Si, Redmond, North Creek, and Newport, hosted by Bothell. Schedule will be as follows:

4:00 - Varsity Girls

4:25 - Varsity Boys

5:00 - JV Girls

5:30 - JV Boys (under 23:00)

6:00 - JV Boys (over 23:00)

Fly Eagles, Fly!

Issy Eagles flew north for our first competition of the year — the Kingco Jamboree. This also acts as a course preview for the Kingco Championships later this season, which will also be held at Marymoor Park in Redmond. This meet had athletes competing within and against their grade levels, where 8 races were held and scored as team races. Of those 8 races, Issaquah won 6 team scores, and had 2 individual wins, and bolstered the second fastest time on the boy’s side and the third and fourth fastest times on the girl’s side.

Beginning with our freshman girls, led by Clara Michael, who finished 2nd overall with a time of 13:45.2. Of note, Sailor Storey, who finished 9th in the race and 3rd for our freshman girls, took her 2 mile best time from 16:36 to 15:20 in just 5 days from our Issy 2 mile Time Trial, an amazing feat! Our freshman boys also raced like veterans, led by Nathaniel Laursen, finishing 3rd with a time of 12:05. Both of these teams took victories in their races, which was an awesome way to start the day and the season!

Sophomore girls, led by Georgia Short, who finished 3rd in her race with a time of 13:31.7, had all four girls participating in the race improve their season bests in the 2 mile distance. Our sophomore boys, led Connor Rickey, showed up in a big way. Connor finished 2nd in 10:23.8–the second fastest boy’s time of the day—and the boy’s won this race 17 points to 50 over Newport’s sophomore boys. Also in the race, Victor Soto, finishing 33rd, improved his 2 mile season best from 15:07 to 13:40 from the time trial on Saturday to the race on Thursday. An awesome showing of putting in hard work over the summer!

Junior girls, led by Jane Harig who finished 2nd in 12.44.9 (fourth fastest time of the day) won their contest over Mercer Island 24-33. Junior boys, led by Brennen Rickey, who won our first individual victory of the day in a time of 10:31 (third fastest boy’s time of the day), finished second only to Newport’s junior squad.

Our Senior girls, featuring the second individual win of the day by Kate Yahn in a time of 12:44.7 (third fastest time of the day), also featured Julia Ryan and Anna Jensen as the trio finished 1-2-3 to lead the group to scoring a perfect score of 15 points. Senior boys closed out the racing festivities, where Ben Konopka led the way with a 2nd place finish in 10:42.3, and winning the team contest over Mercer Island 35-44.

When races were combined to show how the team would perform as a whole, Issaquah Boys won 37-52 over Mercer Island, and Issy Girls won 33-63 over Mercer Island. This was an awesome way to start the season, and we are extremely eXCited for more racing opportunities!

Links to the results are here, and links to photographs of the event done by Ken Fischer are here.

Issaquah will travel to Beaver Lake Park on September 8th to compete against Redmond and Eastlake, where competition will begin at 4pm.

Fly Eagles, Fly!