The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

PASCO - The WP men's varsity cross country team walked away from the state competition last Saturday in ninth place overall and boast­ing a new personal record for E.J. Meserve.

WP coach Joanna Lanning said she is sad the season is over and that her team's perfor­mance on Saturday at Pasco's Sun Willows Golf Course "wasn't up to expectations."

Tri Cities Prep won overall for the men's varsity teams last Saturday and Northwest Christian - Lacey won over­all for the women's teams.

In the men's varsity race, senior Seth Deal placed 13th with a time of 17:23.8, fol­lowed by Tewedros McDow­ell in 38th place with a time of 18:08.6, Meserve in 49th place with a time of 18:26.4, Jacob Dingfield in 81st place with a time of 19:05.3, Co­rey Braxton in 103rd place with a time of 20:07.3, Trent Hafen in 116th with a time of 20:48.3 and Kevin Kamel in 127th with a time of 22:00.5.

Lanning said she was very proud of Dingfield who "stepped it up this weekend" as well as Meserve who earned a personal record despite falling during the race. Lanning said Meserve slipped and fell during the second mile of the race and bumped his head and still beat his previous times.

Hafen didn't perform as well because he had been out most of the season with injuries, Lanning said, and Braxton had missed a couple of practices as well.

As for Deal, who placed 16th in state in 2011 and fourth in state in 2010, Lanning said she was disappointed for him.

"He should have been second," she said. "A combi­nation of factors contributed to not executing at his level."

Lanning said before track season starts this spring, she believes Deal needs a men­tal and physical break from running after two disappoint­ing races in a row for him. But, she believes that with a break he'll come out on top in track.

"He'll prove himself," she said. "He's a great kid."

Lanning said she believed going into the state competi­tion on Saturday that her team overall could have placed sixth, besting WP's previous record of seventh place overall in years past. However, she's happy to hear from her younger athletes that they want to participate in cross country again next year - even some of the Ju­bilee Leadership Academy athletes on the team want to return. She liked having the Jubilee athletes on her team because she believes she's a better coach now.

"It was fun and it stretched my coaching," Lanning said.

She's just looking forward to building her team and see­ing some of them again in the spring for track.

"It was a great experi­ence," she said.