LAKEWOOD — With two-tenths of a mile left in the 2A Cascade Conference meet, Taylor Guske found another gear and sprinted his way past the competition and into familiar territory Oct 24.

The Lakewood senior out-kicked Archbishop Murphy’s Connor Ballew en route to his second consecutive individual conference championship.

“I could feel myself pull away about at the baseball field,” Guske said of his 16:26 finish, just eight seconds off his personal record but matching the meet record held by 2005 state champion Tyler Rapp. “It feels really good after racing well. At about two miles, I wasn’t feeling great — not really wanting to race.”

Guske’s finish anchored No. 5-ranked Lakewood boys to a sixth straight conference championship, edging second place ATM by just three points with a score of 44.

“Winning league is great, but I think of it more about what the team has accomplished,” Guske said. “Looking back and seeing my buddy Chad Skiles finish third was pretty cool.”

Skiles (3rd, 17:02) was the second of three Cougar runners to finish in the top 10. Following him was Nick Howe, who was 10th with a time of 17:44.

For the girls, No. 4-ranked Lakewood (61 points) took second behind top-ranked Cedarcrest (46 points). Chelsea Stokes led the way for the Cougars, finishing the 3.1-mile race in 19:47, earning her third place. She was followed by other top-10 finishers Rachel Cundy (5th, 6:27) and Chelsea Sowards (9th, 6:37).

In the Wesco Conference-North race, Marysville-Pilchuck was fifth with a score of 140. The top Tomahawk finisher was Stevie Utt, who was 16th, with a 17:17 time, followed by Eduardo Carranza, who was 18th.

The Tomahawk girls were sixth, but had a pair of top-10 finishers in Rachel Lefstad (6th, 19:35) and Veronica Hall (10th, 19:56).

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