Warrior runners make history

DARRELL L. BREESE/ Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Championships was a meet for the favorites.

Before the starter's pistol fired everyone knew who would win.

Palmer sophomore Jake Parisien and Susitna Valley High senior Kayti Krepel delivered. They each won individual honors Wednesday at the annual cross country meet on the trails at Colony High School.

The meet wasn't without surprises, despite the victories from the favorites. With the individual titles basically pre-determined, the competition for the team title was wide open.

"Coming into the meet everyone picked Jake and Kayti to win," Colony coach Mark Doner said. "They came in with the best times on the season, making them easy choices as pre-race favorites.

"But it was anybody's guess who would win the team titles," Doner added. "It could have gone any one of three teams in both the boys and girls competition."

Eventually it was the Wasilla Warriors who made history, sweeping the team titles for the first time in the history of the Warrior cross-country running program.

Parisien set a blistering pace from the start and finished the race in 11 minutes, 44 seconds. Krepel on the other hand had to wait out a challenge from Colony's Johanna Doner to win in 14:27. Doner finished in 14:38.

Krepel and Doner quickly pulled away from the field on the 3.5-kilometer course. Wasilla's Jessica Gross was in that pack early, but couldn't match their move as they entered the wooded trails.

Doner was the next to slip off the pace set by Krepel with a little over 600 meters to go.

"I planned on pulling ahead of her and running from the front," Krepel said. But Johanna stayed with me. I felt great and took off with about a half mile to go and it paid off."

Wasilla, led by Jessica Gross's third place finish, captured the team title with 47 points. Palmer was second with 51 points, and Colony took third with 56.

"The middle part of the pack all ran well for us," Wasilla coach Kristila Gardner said. "Our three through six (runners) gave us a really strong pack."

While Parisien was recovering from his winning run, Colony senior Joe Cook and Steven Watcher from Wasilla engaged in a sprint over the final 100 meters that was as close as the contest for the boy's team title.

Running neck and neck for most of the final meters of the race, Watcher was unable to match the late surge from Cook who took second. But it was Watcher who was celebrating moments later as he realized that his teammates had ran well enough to snatch the team title away from Colony.

Contact Darrell L. Breese at 352-2267 or at darrell.breese@

frontiersman.com.