Senior Chandler Dennison made her Metro League debut a winning one last Thursday.

Not only was her wire-to-wire win a "first" in her cross country career, but Dennison's time of 20:33 over the 5,000 meter Lower Woodland course was the fastest by a West Seattle High girl in at least the past eight seasons.

Unfortunately, an incomplete team of only four runners could not capitalize on Dennison's victory, since five runners are required to tally a team score. Also representing WSHS, in their order of finish, were Sam Mashburn, Vanda Szabo, and Cailey Dullum.

The earlier boys' race set the stage for excitement as senior Kyle MacDonald ran stride-for-stride with the Bishop Blanchet cross country machine and outran all but one to finish second in a sterling personal record of 17:24.5. Cooper Sinai-Yunker (18:44) finished tenth in the team scoring to show a good 1-2 punch for the West Seattle team.

With MacDonald in a class by himself, ultimate team success will depend on whether No. 3 runner, Eli Swedlow, and No. 4, "Wick" Wickham, can close rank with Sinai-Yunker. Freshman Wickham ran an auspicious inaugural cross country race. His time of 20:21.5 is only about ten strides behind MacDonald's end-of-season best when the latter was a freshman in 2005.

Ian Keithly, also in his first cross country race, was West Seattle's fifth scoring runner. Veteran Lars Stromberg and newcomer Cuzak Bailey rounded out the varsity contingent. Team scores in the boys' event were Bishop Blanchet 19, Bainbridge Island 62, West Seattle 80, and Ingraham 88.

John Leonard may be reached via wseditor@robinsonnews.com