YOUR AD HERE »

Smith, Lambdin finish 1-2 at Mt. Sac

Steve Yingling

South Tahoe High’s Kelsey Smith and Kate Lambdin finished 1-2 at the Mount Sac Cross Country Invitational on Friday in Los Angeles.

Their top-two finishes nearly propelled the Vikings to first in the Division III girls’ team standings. STHS was runner-up to Laguna Hills, losing by only nine points.

Team scores were Laguna Hills 58 and South Tahoe 67. No other school was in sight as Laguna Hills and the Vikings were the only teams to break 100 points.



Smith’s winning 5-kilometer time in the 168-competitor field was 18 minutes, 58 seconds. Lambdin wasn’t far behind as she crossed the finish line in 19:18.

Laguna Hills’ top-five runners, however, finished before the Vikings and the Orange County school had three runners crack the top 10.



Freshman T.J. Zaccor was 18th for the Vikings in 21:02, freshman Cheldon Rabbetts came in 21st in 21:15 and senior Jordan Dalton placed 30th in 21:43, freshman Ali Palacios 76th in 23:29 and freshman Karly Arroues 81st in 23:47.

In the boys’ meet, Viking senior Chris Gamage and sophomore Jordan Yingling each finished in the top 50 in a field of 178 runners.

“It was pretty fun placing that high on the team and going out there and doing the best I could,” Yingling said. “It was the hardest course we’ve run all year, and it drained both the boys’ and girls’ teams.”

Gamage led the Vikings by placing 32nd in 17:50. Yingling was 50th in 18:19.

“Chris did good job, and Jordan ran very good race, stepped up and did a good job,” said STHS coach Dominique Westlake. “The two sophomores are running better every week, figuring it out, taking some chances and running faster.”

STHS, which raced without senior Patrick Reilly, finished 12th out of 30 teams in Division III meet. Mount Whitney won with 98 points; the Vikings had 278.

Senior Matt Arroues continued a late-season surge by placing 55th in 18:26; sophomore Erich Baumann, recovering from a back injury, was 78th in 18:52; and senior Joe Young rounded out the STHS scoring by taking 91st in 19:10.

Senior Joey Summerhill, battling a hip injury for most of the season, was 93rd in 19:12 and freshman Brady Hiob was 109th in 19:29. Hiob was the seventh freshman in the race.

Dustin Fay of Rim of the World posted a winning time of 15:56.

Both STHS teams will compete in the Northern 4A regionals on Thursday in Reno. The STHS girls race at 3:40 p.m. and the boys at 5 p.m. at Rancho San Rafael Park. The Viking girls are a virtual lock to make state, while the boys will be in a heated battle for the final spot with Bishop Manogue.

“We need everyone to be on,” Westlake said. “The Manogue coach will have his kids prepared, and we need to have our best race and be ready to go.”

Trophy switch at ROP

Talk about your highs and lows in sports. Whittell had the first-place trophy in hand at the ROP cross county meet on Friday before an error was realized in scoring.

As a result, the 3A Dayton Dust Devils were award first place by four points over Whittell. Coach Lindsay Wines was still pleased with her team, which defeated all of the 2A schools present.

“The kids really stepped up. If we run like this on Thursday, we could be qualifying for state,” Wines said.

Whittell will compete with 12 other Northern 2A teams for three state meet berths on Thursday in Carlin.

Senior David King led the Warriors at ROP, finishing second behind Sierra Lutheran’s Tayor Love. Their times were 17:46 and 18:08, respectively.

Also for Whittell, Adam Kingman was ninth, Adam Laub 10th, John Robinson 16th, Allen McLeod 17th and Chris Crawford 29th. In the girls’ race, Whittell’s Shannon Marshall was fifth, 23:25; Miranda Flores, sixth, 23:53; and Morgan King, 13th, 25:25.


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

Readers around the Lake Tahoe Basin and beyond make the Tahoe Tribune's work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.

Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.

Your donation will help us continue to cover COVID-19 and our other vital local news.