Dylan Reubenking / For Nisqually Valley News
By the time anyone not wearing a Rainier uniform crossed the finish line at the Central 2B League kickoff meet Thursday, an Academy Award winner could have given their full speech.
Not quite an Adrien Brody “Best Actor” speech, but enough to draw the orchestral swell and applause.
Jazzlyn Shumate, Komaire Robles and Alexis Myers all cruised to the top three spots at Rainier Elementary School, and the fourth-place finisher arrived about 43 seconds later. The hunt for the top prize came down to a photo finish, as Shumate (20 minutes, 21.01 seconds) edged out Robles (20 minutes 21.48 seconds) by less than half a second. As Shumate neared the finish line, Robles caught up from behind and nearly completed the comeback.
The competition was all in good fun for the two Mountaineers, who were two podium finishers when Rainier clinched its first state title in Pasco last fall.
“It’s really good to have someone that’s still there to push me. Komaire and I work really well together,” Shumate said. “For her and me to be able to push each other not just in practices but in races, I think it gives us a little bit of an edge. But it’s also nice because neither one of us gets hurt feelings about it. We still celebrate with each other.”
Myers strolled not too far behind Shumate and Robles in third at 21:18. All three Rainier runners improved on their time from last year’s C2BL Kickoff, and the reigning champions believe their ceiling keeps getting higher.
They didn’t walk into Sun Willows Golf Course last November expecting to leave state champions, but there’s a different pep in their step this year.
“It’s definitely gonna be very difficult, and it’s gonna be a lot of hard work,” Robles said. “Last year, we definitely didn’t think it was possible. It wasn’t even a question in the beginning, and it ended up happening. These girls definitely have so much potential.”
With potential and expectations comes complacency and temptation. New leaders have to step in as seniors like Madison Ingram and Emma Mathson depart. But Shumate, Robles and Myers have established themselves as a three-headed force, and Kinsley Barlow is not far behind them as she took seventh Thursday. Newcomers Ruby King and Isabella McCarthy also reached the top 20.
“In November, I had nothing to lose. We were supposed to get second [at state]. We had the dream team,” Myers said. “If we lost, it wasn’t a big deal. But now, we’ve done it before and we want to do it again.”
Aside from Rainier, the C2BL has plenty of talent that can compete for hardware. Mossyrock senior Joan Wedam earned sixth in Rainier, and Toledo sophomore Braelyn Nyberg impressed in her second race with an eighth-place finish. Fellow Toledo sophomore Lilly Cooper came in ninth.
A couple of local freshmen in Adna’s Iris Ballif and Mossyrock’s Alice Wedam clinched top 15 finishes and improved from their first races.
But the league is Rainier’s to lose. After all, the Mountaineers have won four straight league titles. Head coach Rob Henry has seen the work ethic from his team continue to elevate since last year’s dream season, especially when it comes to practice. Henry and fellow coach Karissa Beckman have focused on one concept this offseason: be comfortable with running uncomfortably.
“When you run, your body senses a time of, ‘This is a good pace. I’m comfortable in this pace.’ Your body naturally goes back to that,” Henry said. “To go faster, we’ve got to get that person out of that comfort pace. We do that for training. It’s a mindset of saying, ‘I’m not going to run at that speed. I’ve got to run at the next speed up.”
If the Mountaineers keep at their speed training, the school record of 19 minutes and 23 seconds, set by Elaina Hansen in 2018, is in danger. The question will come down to which Mountaineer will break it, or perhaps more than one of them will.
It will take the Mountaineers growing fond of uncomfortable running to repeat what they accomplished last year, sweeping every championship in their sight. But this year’s squad has the potential to finish the season faster than last year’s, and medals will certainly rain down as a result.
