Valley squads finish in top tier of loaded Palmer Invitational

PALMER — Despite nursing a pain in his own backside, Palmer’s Jake Parisien did his best Saturday to make the Palmer Invitational as uncomfortable as he could for Kodiak’s Trevor Dunbar.

After taking a week off running with a pinched nerve in his lower back, Parisien managed to push the state’s reigning 4A cross country champion for the first three kilometers of the 5-K race, even passing the Kodiak speedster midway through the race.

But then Dunbar pushed back.

“The last lap, I just surged,” Dunbar said of his showdown with the Valley’s top cross country runner.

Dunbar pulled away from Parisien over the final two kilometers, racing to an impressive 16 minute, 18.6 second time on an extremely muddy Palmer course. Parisien finished with a time of 17:06.62, good enough for second place in the state’s largest cross country meet of the season. South Anchorage’s Aaron Fletcher was third.

Parisien’s injury forced him to spend the past week’s practice in the Palmer swimming pool as he tried to loosen up the nagging back injury. After Dunbar made his move, Parisien said he decided giving chase wouldn’t be worth the risk.

“When I knew I had second locked up, I just kind of coasted in,” Parisien said.

Heavy rains overnight Friday and all day Saturday turned the Palmer trails into a boggy mess in places, and Parisien said keeping his footing was a constant battle.

“You’re mostly just watching where to step,” the Palmer senior said.

While many athletes in the field said they enjoyed the wet weather — Dunbar said it was “more like a Kodiak environment” — Parisien admitted he prefers sunshine.

“I hate it,” he said. “I’d rather have 70 or 80 degrees.”

Palmer coach Tim Lundt said Saturday’s race proved Parisien belongs in any discussion of the state’s top runners.

“He looked good today,” Lundt said.

Parisien’s performance led the Moose to a third-place finish in the boys 4A race, one spot behind rival Colony, which got a surprise top-5 finish out of Mason Wick and a ninth-place run from Antone Zagars. Kodiak won the overall boys 4A title, while Grace Christian was the top 1-2-3A boys team.

Following the race, Wick said his plan Saturday was to go out fast and see how long he could hang with the top runners.

“I got out quick and held out with the big Anchorage dogs,” Wick said.

The Colony runner said he was shocked to see a number of his Valley rivals finish behind him.

“I definitely didn’t think I’d be ahead of guys like Wasilla’s Jimmy Sliwa or Palmer’s Kevin Smith,” Wick said.

Colony coach Mark Doner said he couldn’t be happier with his team’s showing on the same Palmer course where the state meet will be held later this month.

“I thought we had a great race today,” Doner said.

The Wasilla boys placed 10th overall out of 20 boys 4A teams.

Sliwa was the top Warrior in the race, finishing 11th, one second behind Smith in 10th. Other top Mat-Su runners included Colony’s Jeff Ford (20th) and Cody Huggins (22nd), Palmer’s Lauri Husa in 24th and Wasilla’s Baruch “Darth Vader” Chamberlain in 27th. Chris Ashland was the top Houston High finisher, placing 108th.

In the boys 1-2-3A race, Matthew Krepel placed 43rd for Su Valley, which finished 10th overall.

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