A perfect night to start the HS XC season in Oregon, including the debut of Paige Rice

Friday was a great night to kick off the high school sports season here in Oregon, so naturally I went to a cross country meet.

Wilsonville High held its third annual night meet, a perfectly good 30-team affair in which nearly 900 runners competed in eight 3,000-meter races (one for each class, boys and girls).

Times were fast, with half of each race on the track or turf infield. Top-40 hits pumped out of the loudspeakers, and the crowd was loud and supportive.

But what drew me to the meet was a freshman named Paige Rice. She enters St. Mary’s Academy as the most decorated age-group runner in state history with numerous Jr. Olympic national championships in both cross country and track.

Rice, running against more than 90 other freshmen, was pressed for the first 600 meters by Crescent Valley’s Aiyanna Cameron-Lewis. That’s about when Rice picked it up, surged to the front, and began building her lead.

“I wanted to get a little bit of momentum going,” Rice explained.

She crossed the finish line in 10:50 and won her first high school race by 23 seconds. It certainly won’t always be that easy.

Rice’s St. Mary’s teammates have done a good job of making her feel like one of the gang. She’s experienced enough, even as a ninth grader, to know how to manage pressure.

Rice turned at the end of the chute and reached out her hand as the rest of the finishers rolled in. She didn’t move. She touched the hand of nearly every finisher in the race and congratulated them with “good job.” Of course, all of these ninth graders are going to hear about Rice if they haven’t already.

“I’ve done that for a while,” Rice said of her post-race greetings. “Some girl did that for me once after I had a bad race, and I liked it.”

Rice’s time was the best of the night for the girls until the seniors raced. Crook County’s Kellie Foley, the Class 5A champion in 2008, outkicked Ragan Allen of Grant to win in 10:45. Allen came in at 10:48.

Sophomore race winner Erin O’Neill of Lakeridge finished strong in 11:02, winning handily by 21 seconds. And then she, too, turned and greeted every finisher in her race.

“It’s the first time I’ve done that,” O’Neill explained. “I started with the first two and then I decided to stay there. They’re all doing their best.”

Refreshing show of sportsmanship.

Claire DeVoe of Lincoln ran well to win the juniors race in 10:51.

On the guys side of things, we learned that there is a youth movement afoot at Hermiston. The bare-chested Bulldogs (not sure where their jerseys were) went 1-2 in the freshman race (Jose Macias won it in 9:41) and then also had the winner in the sophomore race (Eduardo Juarez in 9:15).

The junior and senior races were won by Franklin Quakers. Jackson Baker ran 9:05 to win the junior race and teammate Ian Burgess — perhaps the No. 1 guy in the state this year — won the senior race in 9:00.

Another impressive performance came from the West Linn boys, who looked very much like a state championship contender in Meet No. 1. The Lions  placed five seniors in the top nine spots of the meet’s final race, led by Cullen Wannarka.

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