By Joaquin Aguilar-Flores, KFCS
If you have not heard or were unfamiliar, Klamath Union cross country has made quite a roar in the Skyline Conference and beyond.
This past weekend, at the OSAA Class 4A State Championships hosted at Lane Community College, Klamath Union’s girls cross country team did the unthinkable to many people going into this season. KU girls cross country brought home a silver trophy after ending in second place at the state run.
If it was a secret it is not a secret anymore after the girls’ cross country team won its third state second-place trophy in school history.
“I'm Uber competitive. I am. If we're gonna put teams together, I want to put the best teams we can. So we're gonna go out and recruit kids, whether they've ever run or not. We have probably six or seven kids that had never run before this year,” Klamath Union cross country head coach Rob Coffman said. “I want people to know this is something these girls take serious; it's not a, you know, a club sport. It's something they're good at.”
The accomplishment, unprecedented, as the Pelicans had no seniors running for them this season. KU’s second-place finish had the team earn 89 points, just behind state champion Philomath, which finished with 76 points.
KU had three runners finish in the top 20, led by sophomore Hallie Pyfer’s sixth-place finish, who ended the 5,000-meter course in 19 minutes, 18.8 seconds. Pelican freshman, Olivia Mitchell and Allie Nelson, each crossed the finish line in 20:21.0 to finish 19th and 20th, respectively.
KU junior Leona Higgins was next in line for KU and placed in 26th place with her time of 20:35.9. Sophomore Ellie Baumann earned 38th with her mark of 21:43.2.
Juniors Hazel Squibb and Eleanor Rodriguez, also had strong finishes. Squibb took 53rd at 22:08.8 and Rodriguez came right behind her in 54th, with her time of 22:08.9.
Coffman, in his 23rd season as cross country head coach, through and through, has seen his share of stellar distance teams.
This year’s team, however, going into the season, was a coin flip as the team was unranked in the preseason state coaches’ poll, and rightfully so.
The team lost its top runner, Coffman’s daughter, Isabela, after she graduated last year, a year when she won the individual girls’ Skyline Conference title race, which helped her team to its third straight conference championship.
In a team of mostly underclassmen, the void of having an unquestionable leader clearly did not faze the group and found themselves in second in the midseason poll before eventually winning the conference for the fourth year in a row before earning its state title hardware.
“That's one of the reasons why this team is a lot better than last year's team. Last year, we had five girls that were really competitive; we had two that were kind of backaways. If one struggles, your team struggles,” Coffman said. “But here, since you have seven and five score, if one's off a little bit, somebody else is pushed right in. So the depth of this year's team was a big improvement.”
Finding a new home
After hearing of the culture Coffman had established in Klamath Union’s cross country program, Pyfer was all in.
Pyfer and her family were looking to relocate to Klamath Falls this past May after her father was offered a new job. Pyfer was torn between attending KU or Henley High School before she realized which school fit one of her biggest passions.
“We looked at KU a bit and we looked at Henley and didn’t really know what to do. We were leaning more towards KU since they have a really good distance program,” Pyfer said. “We went to church the next day and we happened to run into Coffman, and we talked to him and I was like, ‘hey, I wanna run for this guy, like this is like legit. This is something I wanna do.”
Finding a balance
Mitchell and Nelson had the pressure of juggling their passions of soccer and cross country this season. Mitchell was even wrapped around another sport and spent time on a local dance team as well.
The two freshmen dealt with minor injuries this fall after Nelson hurt her knee during basketball training in the summer.
While Pyfer and Nelson both ran in middle school, that was not the case for Mitchell, who coincidentally joined the team after it hosted its ugly sweater run.
Mitchell and Nelson expressed how they encouraged each other during the season, going all the way to the end of their season in the state race as they finished in the same tenth of a second.
Klamath Union’s girls cross country team held better scores than some of the top 5A and 6A teams in the state this season.
KU had better team scores this year than South Medford, Ashland, Grants Pass, North Medford and Roseburg. The only team the Pelicans did not beat this year was the eventual 5A state champion, Crater.
“We did not hear a lot about last year’s team as Allie and I are both freshmen but I think we knew we could compete this year,” Mitchell said. “It helped to have someone at the meets who you knew who was in front of you. That really helped push me this year.”
“I think all the girls are really close and to get second brought us together even more,” Nelson said. “There was always that healthy competition for us this year between all of us and it helped us get better.”
