Tumwater’s Hoffer Wins at St. Martin’s

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Tumwater senior John Hoffer took first place with room to spare at St. Martin’s University, beating out a field of 203 runners with time to spare.

The Thunderbird flew over the 5,000-meter course in 15:56, finishing a good 14 seconds ahead of second place Zachary Walsh out of Yelm.

The T-Birds took second as a team, out of 11 full squads on the course. Olympia won the team title on both the boys and girls sides.

Behind Hoffer, fellow senior Mason Ball took seventh with a time of 17:08.9. Junior Brenden Hamilton missed out on the top-10 by two-tenths of a second, finishing in 17:17.2 for 11th. Andrew Harden was 16th (17:31.9). A gaggle of three T-Birds crossed the line together a few seconds later; freshman Jude Furubotten’s time of 17:42.8 – good for 18th – was the only one that counted to the team score, but Reis Howell came in a second behind him and Nathan Klingelhoffer was three seconds behind that.



Rochester, which finished eight as a group, was led by Gunnar Morgan and his 15th-place time of 17:31.7. Taydee Evenstar (19:16.4) was 48th, Reece Calica (19:55.0) was 64th, Hunter Morgan (20:41.7) was 83rd, and Hunter Young (21:08.8) was 94th.

Evan Thummel led Centralia with a time of 20:33.7 for 81st; he was the only Tiger to finish in the top half of the field.

On the girls’ side, Tumwater led the local squads with a fifth-place finish as a team. Olivia Ahrens crossed the line in 21:31.8 to finish ninth out of an even 100 runners. Rachel Zahn (23:06.4) and Jesse Brumbaugh (23:09.5) were 20th and 21st, respectively. Audrey Strand (24:38.2) was 31st, and Aneila Sheppard (31:16.1) took 85th.

Centralia came in right behind the T-Birds for sixth, with freshman Elyse O’Dell setting the tone with an 18th-place time of 22:56.7; she was the second freshman to cross the line. Keira Jones (24:00.5) was 27th, Ruth Gonzalez (26:28.1) took 50th, Riley Meade (27:56.8) finished 61st, and Summer Holmes (29:01.1) finished 71st.