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PASCO -- Andrew Gonzales was halfway into his bid for a state title, and he knew trouble was on his heels.
The Southridge senior had figured to push the pace hard Saturday at Sun Willows Golf Course, forcing the rest of the field to fall back and turn the 4A state cross country championships into a two-man race with Central Kitsap's Shane Moskowitz.
Instead, the duo couldn't shake a pack of four more runners, and in the end it would cost Gonzales his best shot at a title.
Redmond's Mac Young made his move over the final 700 meters and pulled away for a three-second win over Moskowitz, finishing in 15 minutes, 18 seconds.
Gonzales had to fight to hold off Skyline's Simon Sorensen to repeat his fourth-place finish from last season.
"From the start, I went out there just to lead it," Gonzales said after receiving his medal to a throng of support from family and friends. "This is it, the last race of my high school year. I was going to win it. I had that confidence in me."
Indeed, he bettered last year's time in the 3A race by 51 seconds, finishing in 15:29 for a 5K personal best.
Kamiakin's Evan Fiske finished 16th in 15:56 to earn a berth in Border Clash, the Nov. 22 race between the top runners from Washington and Oregon.
"That was my goal coming in here," Fiske said.
Hanford sophomore Erin Hegarty's goal in the 3A girls race was to put a frustrating regional race behind her and get back on the medals podium.
She succeeded on both counts. She ran with the lead pack for much of the race, sitting in fifth until the final quarter-mile when she was passed by Juanita's Tansey Lystad. Still, her sixth-place finish was four spots better than a year ago, and her 18:56 time was a 47-second improvement.
"I just felt better this week," she said. "I tried to have a better attitude and not let any bad emotions come in. I just wanted to have fun, be confident and enjoy the race."
The Falcons finished sixth in the team race with 168 points, beating out Glacier Peak on the sixth-runner tiebreaker. It was the Falcons' best finish since placing fourth in 1988.
Kiona-Benton senior Jose Marcial thought he had missed out on a podium finish when he faded in the final half-mile to ninth place in the 1A boys race.
His mood brightened when he found out he'd earned hardware for the second straight year and improved 38 seconds upon his seventh-place time of a year ago, finishing this time in 16:37.
Marcial went out hard and actually led the race at the mile mark, but he started to worry he'd burn himself out and thus ratcheted down his pace.
Bad move. "I slowed down a bit, and I couldn't pick it back up," he said. "That was the most difficult thing I've ever tried to do."
Royal sophomore Ethan Tonnemaker also returned to the medals podium, finishing 12th in 16:42 to lead the Knights to a 12th-place team finish -- best of the three local schools in the field. Ki-Be was 13th and Wahluke 16th.
Richland had been ranked as high as second in the 4A girls this season, but the Bombers' pack strategy failed them at Sun Willows. They had only a 40-second spread from their first through fifth runners, bested only by champion Eastlake's 29 seconds, but with Richland's top runner buried in 42nd place, it couldn't score low enough to make up for its lack of a front-runner.
The Bombers finished seventh with 212 points, 45 behind fourth-place Stanwood, which had two runners in the top seven to bolster its fifth runner in 128th.
"I thought we got out better than we did last year," said Richland coach Lauri Sax, whose team finished eighth a year ago.
The Tri-Cities Prep boys finished ninth in the 2B/1B meet. They were eighth a year ago in an eight-team field; the meet expanded to 16 teams this year.
The Ki-Be girls finished 12th in the 1A race, improving upon a 16th-place finish a year ago.
