Chiefs cross country struggles at districts

YAKIMA - Last night the Moses Lake Chiefs cross country teams fell below head coach Loren Childers' expectations as the girls took sixth place and the boys seventh place at the Big 9 District Championship at Franklin Park.

"It definitely wasn't either teams night and tonight, I don't know what to say," Childers said. "Watching our varsity team race tonight was painful. They definitely didn't show what they were capable of doing."

Childers saw both team potentially finishing in the top four coming in the meet after a season of strong outings by his harriers.

Still the teams did see some strong individual performances from Hannah Marsh who recorded a time good enough for 11th and 2nd-team All-League honors.

Last year Marsh finished 22nd and last night bettered her previous fast time at Franklin Park by 28 seconds.

Marsh's teammate Julia Sheremet recorded an honorable mention All-League time and finished 20th overall an improvement of 25 places from 2009,

Leading the boys team was Hayden Wise who took 27th with a time of 17:34 - a 30-second improvement from last year on the same course.

With a 17:44 came Dylan Darlington and that finish gave him the fourth fastest time by a sophomore in the league. It was a minute-and-a-half improvement from last year's district meet.

"It wasn't all negative since we had many great individual performances," Childers said. "We just did not race well as a team. Typically, our last race of the season is our best, and many of my runners did just that."