(Shane Iverson / KYUK)
Wrangell High School’s boys’ cross country team are state champions for the second year in a row. The seven boys ran down the state title at the Division III ASAA Cross-Country State Championships in Palmer on October 7.
The Wrangell boys’ winning streak is new – last year (2022) was the team’s first state win in the history of the program.
Sophomore Boomchain Loucks took the individual state title for the 3.1-mile race in 17:28, and senior Keegan Hansen raced down second place in the state, beating the third-place competitor from Cordova by less than a second.
But the rest of the team wasn’t far behind – out of the 80 athletes competing in the boys’ Division III state championships this year, all but one of Wrangell’s runners placed in the Top 25.
Junior Daniel Harrison came in 5th, sophomore Ian Nelson came in 12th, freshman Jackson Carney came in 19th, sophomore Jackson Powers came in 22nd, and freshman Everett Meisnner came in 51st.
It’s the second year in a row that a Wrangell runner won the boys’ individual title, after Daniel Harrison won state last year as a sophomore.
As a team, Wrangell boys finished far ahead of the competition. For a team score, runners’ places are converted to points. The lower the place, the lower the points. Wrangell’s boys’ team scored 28 points, more than 40 points less than the second-place team (Cordova, 72 points) and third-place team (Petersburg, 75 points).
The state win came on the heels of a decisive team regional title win in Juneau at the ASAA Region V (5) Cross Country Championships in late September. Last year, the team also won regionals – its first regional win since 2004.
This year, Wrangell didn’t have enough runners to field a full girls’ team. But two Wrangell girls’ cross country runners individually qualified for state. Freshman Alana Harrison placed 8th in the girls’ state cross country championships and freshman Kalee Herman placed 32nd.
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