Cascade Cross Country team features some strong younger runners

Gone is record setting runner Erin Mullins, multiple time state champ. She’s now running for Boise State. She was part of a league championship team from last season. But only one girl returns from that group. 

“Sarah Paulson is the only returner from our top seven. I guess you could say it is a rebuilding year. We have a lot of new girls, some who are pretty fast, so we’ll see. I’m hoping to have a pretty strong girls team,” Cascade Head Coach Dayle Massey. “It’s going to be tough without a guaranteed number one with Erin. We lost other girls too, Kieran Ringel and Brooke McDevitt. But we have some good, new runners. Brook’s sister, Zoe McDevitt is pretty fast. She’ll be one of the top varsity runners. A few other girls look strong.”

Massey said success is related to how much work the team did over the summer. 

“A person who really ran a lot over the summer can come in and be a really fast runner. Effort in the off season really determines how fast they are going to be. It all boils down to how fast they run, but you don’t know until you have a race,” Massey said. 

Developing the racing skills is a big part of the learning curve for young runners. 

“You can run a good race or bad race. Even Erin had bad races, where she was a lot slower than she should have been. We do some workouts in practice, where we go hard. We do have to decide varsity before the first race,” Massey said. “We have to have some challenge runs so we can see who are the best runners. It constantly changes over the season.”

There are three returners on the boys’ side. Gabe Wulfman is the senior captain. Steven Tveten is back. His brother David was a fine runner for the Kodiaks. Unfortunately, the top returner, Eli Fishburne, moved to Spokane. 

“He would have been our fastest runner. He might have won league this year,” Massey said. “We have Landon Davies, a 9th grader, who went undefeated in 8th grade. He’ll looks like he might be our strongest runner. There are few others that look fast, so we’ll have to see. At this point, I really don’t know. We have a lot of new people.”

There are 50 kids turning out this season, about the same as last year. Massey thinks the league will be pretty strong. 

“For the girls, Cashmere has a lot of returners. Us and Chelan graduated a lot. Omak looks good. Chelan will be good again. On the boys side, Cashmere is strong. Chelan graduated most of their fast runners, but they’ll be strong. There’s no clear front runner,” Massey said. 

Cascade opens the season Sept. 9 at the Ellensburg Invite. 

Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.