Melville earns state title, Hennings finishes ninth in cross county race

On Nov. 8 two student-athletes from Lind-Ritzville/Sprague travelled to Pasco to compete against the best runners in the state.

66 of the best runners from around the state would take the line at 10 a.m. for the 1B/2B Girls’ Race with the entire LRS Cross Country Team among them.

Tracy Melville and Heidi Hennings are the only members of the Cross Country team and despite being on their own for the majority of the season, they both qualified well for the 2B/1B state competition.

Melville qualified with the fastest time in the state with a time of 18 minutes 9 seconds. Hennings qualified ninth with a time of 19 minutes 36 seconds.

The Lind-Ritzville/Sprague Cross-Country program has only been around for two years now. As a junior, Hennings helped establish the program. Now as a senior she was able to recruit Melville, another senior, to participate in this young program.

The five-kilometer course wound its way around the Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco where 1650 participants from 275 different schools prepared to compete. And the weather could not have been more perfect for a race as well, with hardly any wind to slow the runners and temperatures in the 50’s.

At the start of the 1B/2B race Melville would claw her way out of the pack and begin to fight for the lead position early.

Pacing in a race is the hardest part according to Melville and Coach Lance Marquardt had instructed her to stick with the lead group for about the first mile of the course.

However, by the one-mile point of the race she was well ahead of her competitors and would remain ahead for the rest of the race.

Not far behind, Hennings would work her way through the press and begin to advance through her competitors as well.

She would be the 11th runner to pass the one-mile marker, but she would be right on the heels of two others and gaining.

Melville would finish the course in 18 minutes and 36 seconds.

A full 10 seconds ahead of her competitors, she secured the state champion title.

Hennings would cross the finish line at 19 minutes and 54 seconds, which would earn her ninth place in state out of the 66 runners who competed on Saturday.

Coach Marquardt was proud of both competitors, who have worked hard this year despite being on their own for a majority of practices and races.