Rochester’s Gunnar Morgan and Tumwater’s Joshua Morgan have brought out the best in each other in every sport, from youth soccer through high school cross country.
The two seniors, while competing in different leagues and classifications, shared the state championship stage for the second straight year in Pasco Saturday, Nov. 9. One last 5,000-meter trip around the Sun Willows Golf Course was a cumulation of all of the hours spent pushing one another to be great.
“He pushes me to be a better version of myself. I know that I can’t compete with him, so when I’m racing him, I just push myself harder to be with him,” Josh Morgan said. “He’s amazing competition. He’s always been a little ahead of me, and I’ve always just been trying to see how close I can get to him.”
While Josh’s admission has been true this season — Gunnar took 18th at the 1A state meet with a time of 16:36 compared to Josh’s 58th-place finish at 17:01 at the 2A level — it was actually Josh who got the best of Gunnar first early in high school.
“We’ve been running with each other since our freshman year. In our freshman year, he blew me out of the water. He beat me at our league championship. He beat me continuously in our freshman year,” Gunnar said. “I think that really motivated me when I was younger to pursue running really heavily.”
The motivation worked, as Gunnar became the first Rochester runner to win a district title in over two decades on Oct. 31. Warriors head coach Dayle Crockett said, from his perspective, the cousins have never competed to see who is the best. They only want to get better.
“It’s not necessarily that one’s better than the other. They push each other. This year, Gunnar got the better of him, but those two have been so good for each other,” he said.
The Morgans, who have never attended the same school despite being neighbors, train often together during the offseason. When time permits during the season, they enjoy spending time running together and looking at statistics. If they don’t have overlapping meets, they enjoy watching each other compete. Josh got the chance to watch Gunnar win the district title, a proud moment for the whole family.
“I was so excited and happy for him. He’s been working so hard, and to see all that work that he’s done pay off was really amazing,” Josh said. “I’ll be honest, I’ve always been a little jealous of how fast he is. He’s always been a step ahead of me since freshman year, and I’ve always had to work a little harder to catch up to him. It’s really fun to see both of us getting better and me getting closer to him.”
Gunnar was one of two Warriors to run at state, along with senior Taydee Evenstar, who took 125th at 18:45.
Crockett’s team will have to replace lots of production in 2025, but he is proud of the success the class of 2024 brought to Rochester this season.
“I’m excited about those that will be coming back to carry on what this senior class did, and they did a very special thing this year. It was the first time in over 10 years for the boys to be league champs, and both of the girls made it to state,” he said. “We’ve had huge successes with small numbers.”
Josh joined Zane McAferty as the lone T-Birds in Pasco, with McAferty improving drastically from his state debut last fall from 119th to 72nd, cutting well over a minute off of last year’s time.
Tenino was the lone area team to qualify at the 1A level, and the Beavers finished in 16th with 373 points. For a team with only one runner with previous state experience, the youthful Beavers built a strong foundation to improve from as six of the seven runners placed in the top 100.
In his fourth and final state meet, senior Tristan Von Bargen went out with a bang with a 50th-place run of 17:39. He improved each year in Pasco, going from 147th as a freshman to 134th in 2022 and to 109th last year, setting faster marks each time as well.
Junior Carter Mounts took 62nd (18:26), senior Peter Hilton earned 77th (18:26), and junior Justin Schlesner secured a new lifetime best with 19 minutes flat to take home 91st. Sophomore Josiah Marzolf and junior Sevrin Mickelson rounded out the top 100 at 93rd and 96th, respectively.
