Wildcats bring wild energy to first league finals in years
Ukiah runners were a splash of lively color in a sea of grey fog last Saturday, as the Wildcats ran their first league finals in two years. It was their first since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the first in their new league: the “Redwood” Division of the North Bay League.
The name is something of a misnomer, though. One might guess that the “Redwood” division — like the eponymous tree — would logically be stronger and more colorful with deeper history. “Redwood” runners might be fast, but doomed to always run in the shadows of giants. The “Oak” division, on the other hand, might logically have a wider spread of runners, like the canopy of an Oak tree, with less dramatic races. No offense to our local coffee roasters, but there’s no way around it — “Oak” is plainly less exciting than the mystical, gigantic “Redwood.”
In fact, it’s more or less the opposite of what you’d expect. The “Oak” Division is where most of the magic happens, with the fastest, deepest teams running over the storied hills of Santa Rosa’s Spring
Lake Park in a blur. The “Redwood” Division, on the other hand, is where the league hides teams who are still “in development.” And their league finals course, in something of a last-minute surprise, matched that tune. Ukiah, and the rest of the Redwood Division, were relegated to the substantially less sexy, flat, concrete course at Rancho Cotate High School.
The uniforms of the “Redwood” Division on Saturday were similarly muted. West County — the undoubted monolith of the up-and-comers — wore grey, matching the dense fog, as did Healdsburg. Cardinal Newman wore white. The lone runner for Elsie Allen wore navy blue. The only other colors represented on the starting line, aside from Ukiah’s striking gold and royal purple, were Rancho Cotate’s patriotic reds, whites and blues. That said, as a team, Rancho was only large enough to place in one race, earning 5th (out of 5 teams) in Boys Varsity. In short, Ukiah was the only real streak of color in the entirety of the 2.97 mile course.
Ukiah’s runners have always embodied the same bold, unapologetic spirit of their uniforms. The same was true on Saturday. From their 7:40 a.m. arrival in Rohnert Park, the
Wildcats could be spotted juggling bananas, warming up with a few rounds of ultimate frisbee on the astroturf, rolling massive tires with gangly bodies tucked inside, hula-hooping in the distance, and cheering raucously as their teammates out-kicked their competitors in the final 100m stretch.
There were even whispers that the cowbells that were the de facto soundtrack to the races had been popularized by Ukiah’s own Chad Raugewitz. Coach Ed Nieves said that in the week prior, during the Tiger Twilight 3200m, coach Chad had brought a drum and the cowbell to the races. Raugewitz confirmed Nieves’ story. He would drum on it every time a runner came by the bandstands, pausing only to write down his runners’ 400m splits.
And Raugewitz’s signature flair, for all the attention it attracts, certainly worked on Saturday.
All Ukiah runners had PRs (personal records) since their last race at Rancho Cotate High School on 10/27/2021. Improvements ranged from 1 second (Ashley Reed, 9th grade) to 199 seconds (Riley Bogner, 12th grade).
Both the Girls Varsity and Boys Varsity also earned team medals for placing 2nd and 3rd, respectively.
On top of that, Ukiah had four individual medalists:
Junior Nathan Gibson (16:20 / 5:30 mile pace, 1st overall). First Ukiah overall winner in the North Bay League Finals since Paul Holden won in 2012 with a time of 15:01 at Spring Lake Park. Likely first team All-League.
Junior Andrew Tarin (17:21 / 5:51 mile pace, 6th overall), Ukiah’s 2nd Boys Varsity runner. Likely third team All-League.
Senior Kaylee Gaylord (21:02 / 7:05 mile pace, 4th overall), Ukiah’s 1st Girls Varsity Runner. Likely second team All-League.
Senior Kianna Ruffin (21:52 / 7:22 mile pace, 9th overall), Ukiah’s 2nd Girls Varsity Runner. Likely third team All-League.
After a slower, more conservative first mile that he ran alongside fellow junior Andrew Tarin, Nathan Gibson ran away with the boys race during the isolated second mile. When he came by the second mile mark, he had created a sizable gap between him and his nearest competition, the would-be Twin Towers from West County (formerly Analy and El Molino), Joey Thompson and Ben Neargarder, the latter of whom had beaten him only a week prior by three seconds at the Tiger Twilight 3200m. That history hardly mattered on Saturday, though. As Gibson approached the final 400m on the Rancho Cotate track, the West County runners could only faintly be seen in the foggy distance. According to Jim Crowhurst’s famous running blog, redwoodempirerunning.com, Gibson’s margin of victory — 27 seconds — was the largest gap between a firstplace victor and the runner-up in the “Redwood” Division of the North Bay League (formerly the SCL) since 2002. In other words, this was a big win. But this wasn’t just any big win — it was a big win for Gibson in particular, who had trailed Thompson and Neargarder at a 10/6 meet in the Lover’s Lane vineyards in Ukiah. Gibson now turns his attention to NCS, where he will look to compete against a deeper pool of division III runners in the North Coast Section, including not only
West County’s Twin Towers, but also the formidable Maria Carrillo team in the “Oak” Division of the North Bay League. If he runs a sub-16 minute race, according to coach Chad Raugewitz, Gibson may have a shot at going to the State Championships this year. If not, he’ll turn his attention to Track & Field, where he’ll take aim at Ukiah’s all-time 800m record of 1:56, run by Geoff Howard in 1984.
In the girls race, meanwhile, West County crowded the leading pack with five of the top ten finishing runners. Senior Carolina Dawson and sophomore Rosemary Harris ran in relative isolation to take the top two places of the race by comfortable margins. Junior Siene Brunetti followed in third place for Cardinal Newman. The subsequent four runners, however, — senior Kaylee Gaylord of Ukiah, sophomore Kayla Pounds of Rancho Cotate, senior Sienna
Fassett of West County and junior Jennifer Orozco of West County — were treated to surprising company in the final 800m of the race. As they rounded the corner, leaving the Rancho Cotate high school campus behind them, a small black and white dog bolted out around their feet, darting in between their strides at times and, at others, sprinting ahead on the course, only to loop back around and come for them again. Gaylord, leading the pack at this point, appeared unfazed, hardly flinching as she created some timely distance, and eventually outkicked Kayla Pounds, winning by little more than an outstretched arm. Gaylord’s success can be measured, like Gibson’s, by her performance against West County in the Lover’s Lane race on 10/6. In that race, she had trailed the seventh runner on West County’s deep squad. On Saturday, she trailed only two.
In short, Gaylord (like Gibson) enjoyed a similarly big race. Ukiah’s second girl runner, senior Kianna Ruffin, had a similarly exciting finish as she out-kicked her nearest competition: junior Maggie Trebilcock of Healdsburg.
Many of Ukiah’s subsequent runners, Amanda Mucho included, would also kick (sprint, in layman’s terms) as they came down the final stretch.
And, as the team results poured in, it turned out that those kicks made all the difference. Ukiah’s girls took 2nd over competing Healdsburg, winning by just a single point, despite junior Mia Gittleman being unable to compete due to injury (DNR) and freshman Ashley Reed running in the JV race.
Other standouts performances included junior Grason Hardgreaves (19:21 / 6:31 mile pace, 126 second improvement), freshman Jackson Brown (19:27 / 6:33 mile pace, 132 second improvement and 6th overall in the JV race), and junior Amanda Mucho (22:42 / 7:39 pace, 92 second improvement).
The Boys Varsity (Nathan Gibson, Andrew
Tarin, Shane Stearns, Grason Hardgreaves, CJ Raugewitz, Kenneth Olson and new addition Kobi Hasunuma) and Girls Varsity (Kaylee Gaylord, Kianna Ruffin, Amanda Mucho, Lilly Losak, Mia Gittleman, Ashley Reed and Riley Bogner) squads will compete again on Saturday, Nov. 20 at the North Coast Sections in Hayward. Cheer them on in spirit, and come support the Wildcats in person when they return to the Ukiah High School track and field in the Spring.