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Green Grizz make strides By JENNIFER SQUIRES Ashland Daily Tidings On paper, Thursday's Ashland High cross country results don't seem too impressive. The AHS boys tallied 43 points to come in second, but didn't have a runner break 17 minutes, 30 seconds on the dusty Lithia Park course. The Grizz girls finished one point up on Klamath Union, good enough for third among the four Southern Oregon Conference teams. Ashland cross country runners (from left to right) Natalie Hemphill, Alyssa Taylor and Hannah Clark run together early in Thursday's four-way meet at Lithia Park. Hemphill went on to finish second. Ashland Daily Tidings/SATSUKI DOI But a closer look reveals what could be a very bright future for AHS cross country. Four of the top seven Ashland boys competed in just their second varsity races yesterday. The girls' team lost their No. 1, 2, 4, and 5 racers to graduation last spring. "That's a pretty big hit," said second-year head coach Bob Julian Jr. of the girls' team. "So Natalie is kind of stepping in. She's never really done this before." On Thursday, Natalie Hemphill led the Ashland harriers with her second-place finish. It was her second cross country race ever. Last Saturday at the Yreka Invitational, in her first race, the sophomore was the top Grizzly finisher, clocking 16:32 over the 4,000-meter course. "She did really well," Julian said. "She's established herself as a contender to go to state." Hemphill, who celebrated her 15th birthday when her teammates sang "Happy Birthday" before the race, went out quick. She and Roseburg's Katherine O'Neil ran together about a minute behind Crater stand-out Kendel Nelson. Nelson finished second in the 2002 Southern Oregon Conference Championships. "It was good," Hemphill said. "On the bottom loop my legs were airy and I thought I was going to lose it. I was just staying behind the Roseburg girl and trying to stay with her." On the final loop of the race, Hemphill made a move on O'Neil. Onlookers report Hemphill overtook her opponent near the final bridge, about 400 meters before the finish. Hemphill can't remember where she took off. She broke open a 10-second lead over O'Neil and finished the race in 21:30, 80 seconds behind Nelson. "It was great," Hemphill said. "This whole day I've been really pumped." Hannah Clark, Ashland's top returner, crossed the line eighth, less than a minute after Hemphill. "She ran solid," Julian said of Clark, who has been sick for the past two weeks. "She's hanging with it and she'll get back into it." Freshman Alyssa Taylor trailed 30 seconds behind Clark, capturing 12th in the meet. Taylor, like Hemphill, is new to cross country. "She's a little spark plug and has a lot of energy," Julian said. "I don't think she really knows what she can do yet." Julian sees promise in the girls' team. With the addition of Hemphill and Taylor to returners Clark and Briana Lescher, the Ashland girls have a solid group at the top of their roster. Lescher won the 3,000-meter junior varsity girls race in 13:01 on Thursday. The Ashland boys' team, like the girls, lacks experience. "We've got a lot of guys that are new to the whole varsity situation," Julian said. "They're just figuring it out." On Thursday, Julian instructed David Morris and Andy Wright, the top two runners on the squad, to hang back with the rest of the team through the first two miles. Julian wanted his team to get used to running together before they enter larger invitationals and hoped to get the top-five runners under 18 minutes. "We got pretty close," Julian said. "We ran much better as a pack than we did in Yreka." The Grizzly boys finished 5th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th. Morris led the team across the line with a time of 17:37. He was the only Ashland harrier to break 18 minutes, but the four remaining Grizz scorers were within seconds of the coach's goal. Wright, who finished third at the SOC championships last fall, was ninth, with 18:07. Crater's Isaac Stoutenburg won the race in 16:57. He beat Gavin Weaver of Roseburg by seven seconds. Weaver led the majority of 5,000-meter race. The Ashland cross country squads compete in the New Balance Invitational on Saturday. Their next, and last, home race is the State of Jefferson Invitational on Oct. 4. LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -