Cross country runner Stefanie Thelaner finished strongly at the Nevada State Cross Country Meet at San Rafael Park in Reno last Saturday. This ended her three year career for the Trojans. Thelaner has been a top runner her entire career for the women’s cross country team.
Thelaner ran a 22:04 and came in 19th place in the Division 1-A out of 51 runners. The division winner was Skyler Flora from Tahoe-Truckee who had a time of 19:03.
Senior runner Ebonique Diaz from Sunrise Mountain came in 5th place and ran a 20:18. Diaz, Thelaner and Jessica Scamman from Faith Lutheran were the only runners from the South to finish in the top 20 runners.
Prior to the meet Thelaner said her goal was to beat runner Hanah Pavlov of Faith Lutheran and she did. Pavlov ran a slow race and came in 35th place with a 23:25 time. She is normally right by Thelaner, but she may have boxed herself in the crowd.
Thelaner recounted her race.
“I expected the park to be a little bit hillier but it wasn’t,” she said. “I felt my time was slow. I think it might have been the elevation and the surface was slippery to run on. There was some kind of wood chips on the ground. I kept up with the top runners to maybe the first loop. I got to the back hill and it was tougher. If you looked at the times and were just to take the Southern runners I came in second from the South.”