It has been a long time since a Royal jersey has graced the field at the state 4A cross country championships.<\/p>\n
Not since 2002 \u2013 when the Kent-Meridian boys led by Joe Timeus took sixth-place \u2013 have Royal runners qualified for state.<\/p>\n
That all changed last weekend at the Westside Classic 4A championships in Lakewood, when three Kent-Meridian runners \u2013 D.J. Jigre, Derek Daigre and Alexia Martin \u2013 qualified for a trip to Pasco. Jigre, a junior, notched a 15th-place finish at the meet, with Daigre, a sophomore, coming in 22nd. Martin, a freshman, was 25th in the girls competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re very pleased,\u201d coach Ernie Ammons said. \u201cWe thought we might have a chance to sneak a team in there. We got ninth, which isn\u2019t bad. You\u2019ve got to do pretty good in the number four and five spots to do that. But it\u2019s been a fantastic year for us all around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ammons said it all started when he convinced Daigre and Jigre to turn out for the team.<\/p>\n
Last season, Daigre was on the football team and Jigre competed on Ammons\u2019 track and field squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually found him (Jigre) in class, I teach P.E.,\u201d Ammons said. \u201cHe did a pretty good 12-minute run and I asked him to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Previously, Jigre competed in cross country as a freshman at Santa Theresa High School in San Jose, Calif., where he placed first in the district meet. He was unable to compete in the state meet, however, because of school finances.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy school was kind of poor,\u201d he said. \u201cSo this is my first time at a state meet. It feels great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jigre said he was hoping to improve on his 16:30.1 finish from districts.<\/p>\n
\u201cActually I was hoping to go faster,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I worked too hard before the race and didn\u2019t have enough in me. The pace is quicker, but I\u2019m getting used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Martin, it\u2019s her first year competing in cross country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is just her second year running,\u201d Ammons said. \u201cShe started off with track in eighth grade. The first time she ran, she did a 24-minute run and now she\u2019s down to 19 minutes. She broke her personal-record time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin posted a 19:34.5 at the Westside Classic.<\/p>\n
According to Ammons, the difference for Martin has been the coaching, both from the Kent-Meridian staff and some of the seniors on the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn junior high, they don\u2019t do a lot of coaching,\u201d Ammons said. \u201cAnd the seniors really helped her out, like Jill Boroughs, who just missed out on state and placed 40th at districts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ammons said he\u2019s keeping his expectations low for the state meet, but believes his athletes will do just fine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d like to be in the top 50 and I think that\u2019s easily obtainable,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot has to do with how they react when they get running with all those fast kids. We\u2019re just hoping they gain experience and bring that back and help next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe only lose one senior off that district team,\u201d Ammons added. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting having those kids qualify, especially since it\u2019s just their first year running cross country. For them to do this good is great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It has been a long time since a Royal jersey has graced the field at the state 4A cross country championships.
\nNot since 2002 \u2013 when the Kent-Meridian boys led by Joe Timeus took sixth-place \u2013 have Royal runners qualified for state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":2516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2515"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}