Palmer senior finishes second to defending state champ at Region III meet

WASILLA - A potential showdown between two of the state’s top cross country runners turned into a walk in the park for Kodiak’s Trevor Dunbar.

Dunbar, the defending state 4A champion, set a new Colony High course record, finishing the 5-kilometer trail in 16 minutes, 6.12 seconds — nearly 45 seconds ahead of Palmer senior Jake Parisien.

“It’s pretty exciting,” Dunbar said after leading the Bears to a sixth-consecutive Region III boys team title.

Dunbar said winning regions was nice, but that Kodiak’s ultimate goal won’t be realized until after next week.

“We’ve got our eyes set on a state title,” he said.

Coming off a nerve injury that’s had him training in a pool for much of the past two weeks, Parisien was never able to challenge Dunbar. But the Palmer senior said he never planned to go hard on the hilly Colony layout, instead laying back in order to save

himself for next week’s state race.

“I wasn’t going to try to run with Trevor,” Parisien said. “This is not a course to try and push it, and he’s a hard kid to beat any time.”

Dunbar is a hills specialist, while Parisien said he thinks flatter courses — like the Palmer layout where state will be held next week — are more to his advantage.

“He owns the hills,” Parisien said.

Parisien said he feels like the best time to challenge Dunbar will be at next week’s race.

“I’m going to go as hard as I can at state,” he said.

Parisien was expected to finish in the top two for Palmer, but coach Tim Lundt said it was his other runners who were responsible for Palmer’s second-place showing overall. Kevin Smith finished 12th, Willie Mangelsdorf was 13th and Lauri Husa placed 14th for the Moose, which also got a top-20 finish from Piers LaFrance.

“It’s a team effort,” Lundt said.

Lundt said the meet proved his team can run with the state’s best, and said the goal now will be to figure out how to slow down the Kodiak juggernaut at state.

“I’ve gotta work out some strategy to knock them down a little bit,” he said.

He admitted that’s going to be a tough task against the Bears.

“Everybody is going to have to be on their ‘A’ game,” he said.

Colony’s Mason Wick finished fourth overall to lead the Knights to a third-place finish, while Wasilla finished one spot out of a state berth in fifth. Chris Ashland of Houston finished 41st to lead the Hawks.

Jimmy Sliwa (eighth) and Baruch Chamberlain (11th) made it to state as individuals for the Warriors.

Wasilla coach Gary Howell said it was disappointing to wind up just outside of a state berth, but said there was no shame in placing fifth.

“I would say the top three teams in the state are in our region,” Howell said.

Howell said the solid showing proved that the Wasilla cross country team is back on the right track.

“Nobody can say we’re a doormat anymore,” Howell said. “We’ve come a long

way.”

Colony’s finish enabled the school to send both its boys and girls teams to the state meet, the only Valley program to do so. In addition to Wick, Colony also got top-20 finishes from Jeff Ford (ninth), Dave Gray (15th) and Tanner Enloe (16th).

“It’s just a fantastic effort by our kids,” Colony coach Mark Doner said.

With the meet held under ideal fall running conditions — sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-50s — Doner said the event couldn’t have worked out any better.

“It’s been a good day for Colony,” Doner said.

See the Frontiersman Web site, www.frontiersman.com, for complete results of the Region III Championships.

Contact Matt Tunseth at 352-2265 or matt.tunseth@

frontiersman.com