Philomath sophomore Cassidy Smart ran her fastest-ever high school 5K, senior Leo Pausch cracked the 16-minute barrier and Coach Joe Fulton may have found the missing piece to his varsity girls puzzle at Saturday’s Harrier Classic at Bryant Park in Albany.
Smart turned in a time of 18:51.18 — three-tenths of a second faster than what she ran the previous week — and placed sixth in a varsity race that featured 189 runners. Smart held off a hard-charging Crescent Valley runner at the finish to secure her placing.
Pausch came in with a time of 15:49.35 to place ninth for the boys. During the race he went from 13th after 1 mile to seventh at the 2.25-mile mark but slipped to ninth with strong finishes by South Eugene and Franklin runners. Pausch has the fastest time in Class 4A so far this season with the 15:10.5 he ran a few weeks ago in Tillamook.
Perhaps the most significant performance of the afternoon for Philomath occurred in the junior varsity junior-senior race. PHS junior Lucy Thomas, competing in cross-country for the first time since middle school, placed fifth with a time of 21:48.09…