Cross-country: Regional Champions!

Bryce Odegard took first place at the Class 3A Southern Nevada Regional Cross-Country Championships to help his team take the regional title for the first time at Veterans Memorial Park in Boulder City.

The team took first with 39 points out of 10 teams on the 5,000-meter course. It was their first time ever winning a regional meet.

According to Trojans head cross-country coach Matt Kolodzieczyk, this was the first time that Pahrump has ever won a regional title for the boys cross-country team. They finished second in the region last year and fifth at state last year.

“I waited until all the runners crossed the line and then quickly added the places up in my head, and then I knew but really didn’t want to jinx it and so I waited 10 more minutes for the official announcement to come out,” the coach said. “When we found out, everyone was ecstatic. It was a total team effort, for everyone knew who they had to beat and just did it.”

Odegard ran a 17-minute, 36-second race out of 72 runners, Jovan Ibarra (17:54) of Desert Pines took second, Jaime Chavez of Cheyenne (18:01) was third and Jerrick Stastny (18:14) of Moapa Valley was fourth.

After Odegard finished in first place, his team had four other runners that sent them to the top: senior Cole Goodman (18:22) took fifth, sophomore Grant Odegard (18:23) sixth place, Michael Sonerholm (18:29) eighth place and Jacob Cipollini (19:15) finished 19th.

In the team competition, Moapa Valley was second (60), Cheyenne was third (72) and Tech was fourth (101).

Two other boys ran for the Trojans, sophomore Brandon Ruud (20:06) finished 30th and senior Layron Sonerholm (20:12) finished 33rd.

Girls cross-country

The girls cross-country team finished third and more importantly, are going to state as a team for the first time under Kolodzieczyk.

Sophomore Trojans runner Diamond Sonerholm (22:11) finished in fourth out of 71 runners, junior Katherine Goodman (23:42) was 15th, senior Grace Plumb (24:22) was 20th, senior Cynthia Martin (25:00) was 25th, and sophomore Terrena Martin (25:28) was 28th.

The girls finished in third place (92) and qualified for the state meet along with the boys. Also finishing for the girls, sophomore Nsringa Breathwaite (26:01) was 31st and freshman Shailynn Winter (26:25) was 38th.

Kolodzieczyk was happy with the way things turned out for the girls. Last year the girls were in fifth place at the regional meet.

“It was a good day all around,” he said. “At the beginning of the year, we were not sure about the girls and how they would do. Diamond has the potential to be the top runner next year in the region and all she needs is confidence and to learn how to maintain her pace.”

The coach said this was the first time that both teams went to state together. Pahrump will send the same teams to state with three alternates for each team of seven.

Contact sports editor Vern Hee at vhee@pvtimes.com