2 Vashon High School runners qualify for cross country state championship

Five Pirates also set personal bests over the 5K course.

By Bruce Cyra For The Beachcomber • November 1, 2022 1:30 am
Cecelia Guenther, left, and Madeline Yarkin, right, celebrate qualifying for the state championships after their District race on Oct. 29 (Photo courtesy of VHS Pirate Cross Country Coach Lisa Cyra).
Cecelia Guenther, left, and Madeline Yarkin, right, celebrate qualifying for the state championships after their District race on Oct. 29 (Photo courtesy of VHS Pirate Cross Country Coach Lisa Cyra).

Two Pirate harriers qualified for the state championships at the 1A District races at Chambers Bay last Saturday, Oct. 29, with five Pirates setting personal bests over the 5K course.

The races started under low-level fog in chilly weather with the sun coming out towards the end of the day. The harriers made their way around the two-lap course with a long hill on each lap, the hill separating the fields to string out the packs.

Captain Madeline Yarkin (junior) finished in second place in the women’s race, with Cecelia Guenther (freshman) finishing in 13th place to qualify to race in Pasco Saturday, Nov. 5. The Pirate women finished in third place out of seven schools, with only the top two teams being sent on to state.

Pirate Captain Hank McSheehy (senior) narrowly missed qualifying for State, racing to 22nd place, with only the top 21 qualifying in the men’s race.

While finishing only one place out of contention, McSheehy ran his personal best 5K to cap his fifth year racing for Vashon Island teams, first as a Mustang and then as a Pirate.

The Pirate women raced first with Yarkin racing to a season-best of 20:04, followed by Guenther in 23:23 (PB), freshman Emma Campbell in 25:49 (PB), junior Hannah Coicaud in 26:34 (PB), sophomore Lilja Bjarnason in 26:38, and freshman Delilah Spence in 38:21 (PB). This will be Yarkin’s second appearance at state, as she qualified in 2021 as a sophomore, and continuing a Yarkin family tradition, as her older sister Ella raced in Pasco three years in a row from 2017 to 2019 for the Pirates.

The men’s harriers raced next, led by McSheehy in his personal best of 19:15, followed by junior Christian Kincade in 20:17, junior Oli Nielsen in 20:45, junior Dylan Fick in 23:31 (PB), and freshman Jonah Cole in 26:31.

Qualification standards for District 3, to which Vashon belongs as a 1A school, were strict and hard to meet — set due to many private schools in the district failing to have sufficient numbers of team members. Other classifications, such as 2A, had three times as many teams and runners able to qualify for state.

Two private schools in the league did not have a women’s cross-country team at the district meet.

The men’s results are available here. The women’s results are available here.