Cross Country: Meddles 3rd at Stanford

Sierra Lutheran High's Wade Meddles ran to third-place in the seeded boys race at the Stanford Invitational cross country meet on Saturday.

Meddles ran a personal best cross country time of 15 minutes, 9 seconds for 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) on a hot afternoon that saw the temperature hit 104 degrees.

His time was the third fastest of the day overall at a meet that featured 1,200 runners in six boys races.

Meddles finished third in the seeded boys race behind Erik Olson of Novato (14:52.9) and Arcadia's Ammar Moussa (14:56) in a duel between two of California's top prep cross country runners.

Sierra Lutheran finished 23rd as a team in the seeded boys race with 511 points.

Nathanael Williams was the second runner for Sierra Lutheran, as the sophomore finished 92nd (17:16), Levi Grabow 132nd (17:58), Preston Lyons 135th (18:02), Andrew Deterding 149th (18:46), Nathan Conover 156th (19:13) and John McRae 161st (19:33).

Douglas also competed at the meet, finishing 27th in the Division 3 boys team standings and 28th in the girls team standings.

In the boys race, sophomore Andrew Cobourn finished 48th (17:17) to lead the Tigers. Scotty Lococo finished 92nd (17:48), Jeremy Tigh 170th (19:14), Tanner DeGiovanni 171st (19:16), Nickoli Kallman 175th (19:25), Kory Koskin 209th (21:25) and Josh Tigh 211th (21:52).

Sadie Gastelum led the Douglas girls, as the sophomore finished 74th (21:27). Bre Chabow finished 153rd (24:24), Kylie Flannagan 157th (24:39), Lydia Ogles 158th (24:40), Amber Emerson 163rd (25:19), Shannon Sturgess 173rd (26:57) and Tamrah Torres 174th (27:47).

Sierra Lutheran also competed in the Division 5 (small schools) race and finished 14th as a team.

Sophomore Becky Grabow finished 23rd (21:25), Phoebe Mark 52nd (22:51), Karina Young 84th (26:00), Abby Miller 88th (27:20), Tori Jackson 91st (27:38) and Brittany Rupert 92nd (27:48).

Note: There was a Douglas High connection to the Division 2 boys race, where Tulare Union junior Austin Miller ran 16:39 to place 15th. His father, Dean Miller, was the Nevada 3A state cross country runner-up and track 1,600 state champion for Douglas as a senior in 1983-84. Dean Miller, who later ran for Mt. San Antonio College (he was a California state steeplechase champion) and Weber State, is now a science teacher at Palo Verde Union Elementary School in Tulare, Calif., and recently honored as Tulare County's Middle School Educator of the Year.