State cross country: Sophomore earns College Place’s first title

A year ago at this time, Kenneth Rooks was playing freshman football for College Place High School.

“We didn’t have a cross country team last year,” said Rooks.

The Hawks have one this year, and on Saturday the sophomore became the fledgling school’s first-ever state champion when he won the 1B-2B boys state cross country championship at Sun Willows Golf Course, finishing the 5,000-meter course in 15 minutes, 44.6 seconds.

Not bad for a kid who says he doesn’t like running.

“Well, I like running,” he corrected, “but I don’t like the pain.”

Rooks may have been the surprise of the day among the 10 races, pulling away from race favorite Luke Schilter of Northwest Christian of Lacey at the end for the victory.

“I’m very surprised,” said Rooks. “Luke is an amazing runner.”

Rooks had a little success running last spring, placing fifth in the 2B boys’ 800 and 1,600 meters at the state track championships.

But this distance in cross country has been new ground for him this fall.

He kept his sights on Schilter for the first 2 miles of the race.

“I was behind him by about 20 yards at the 2-mile mark,” said Rooks. “Then I made my move after we hit some rolling hills. They seemed to slow him down, and I do well with hills.”

Rooks and his College Place classmates will likely take a step up in classification next fall, joining the South Central Athletic Conference East division, when it adds another grade.

“We had just freshmen last year, sophomores and freshmen this year, and juniors, sophomores and freshmen next year,” said Rooks.

Rooks wasn’t the only area athlete who shined.

The Tri-Cities Prep boys finished fourth as a team in the 1B-2B race, with senior Phillip Geist leading the Jaguars with an 18th-place finish at 17:15.4.

Bickleton’s Andrew Gannon finished 11th in 16:46.3.

In the 1B-2B girls race, Emily Adams of Waitsburg-Prescott placed fourth with a time of 19:46.1.

This story was originally published November 7, 2015 at 7:51 PM with the headline "State cross country: Sophomore earns College Place’s first title."