Tuesday’s prep highlights: ‘Meet of the century’

Prairie coach Phil Phimister called it the “dual meet of the century.”

Now, that might be hyperbole. But it’s worth noting because Phimister’s team lost.

The Camas girls cross country team beat Prairie 25-32 in a Class 3A Greater St. Helens League meet at Lewisville Park in Battle Ground.

“These were two of maybe the top four teams in the state duking it out,” Phimister said. “There were some super times in this meet, and a couple of runners changing places could have turned this whole meet around.”

Camas freshman Alexa Efraimson won the meet on the 4,000-meter course by 21 seconds in 14 minutes, 35 seconds. But the third, fourth and fifth runners — Prairie’s Nicole Goecke, Camas’ Megan Napier and Prairie’s Taylor Guenther were just four seconds apart. The runners in places sixth through 10th were separated by seven seconds.

“It was a wonderful meet. It’s easily one of the best dual meets that I’ve been associated with in my years of coaching,” said Phimister, who has been coaching at Prairie for 27 years.

Phimister said he expects the Papermakers and Falcons to tangle again at the district meet next month at Lewisville Park, and again at the bi-district and state meets.

MORE CROSS COUNTRY: Camas’ win wasn’t the only significant meet of the day. In the 4A GSHL meet at Skyview, the Union girls beat Skyview 24-32, marking the first time the Storm have lost a league dual meet in more than four years.

Freshman Alexis Fuller led the Titans with a time of 18:51 on the 5,000-meter course.

And the Kelso-Columbia River girls meet, also at Skyview, had to be decided by a tiebreaker.

The Hilanders and Chieftains tied at 28-28 after counting each teams’ top five runners. But Kelso’s Elianna Powers was 13 seconds faster than River’s No. 6 runner, giving Kelso the dual win.

BOYS GOLF

Many golf teams would be very pleased to have one golfer with a nine-hole score of 41 or better in match.

On Tuesday, the Camas boys golf team had all six golfers score 41 or lower in the Papermakers’ 159-178 win over Kelso at Camas Meadows.

Brandon Campbell was the low man on the totem pole with a 41 for Camas. Others with better rounds were Cosmo Peng (40), Daniel Patterson (40), Eugene Hsu (40), Koda Robinson (40) and Brandon Waubdy (39).

Now that’s consistent play across the roster.

But the Papermakers didn’t even have the low team score of the day.

Columbia River carded 158, led by Brandon Barnes 38 at Heron Lakes.

Mountain View tallied 157, with Reggie Anderson leading the way with a 38 at The Cedars.

Skyview, led by Garrett Kooistra’s two-under 35 at Tri-Mountain, posted the low score of the day with a 156.

And we can’t forget Ridgefield. The Spudders tallied a 211, but that’s because Trico League team score the top five players, not just four. If you counted Ridgefield’s best four of Dan Hettman (39), Ty Bunch (40), Cory Smetzler (41) and Declan Daly (45), the Spudders had a solid 165. And that was without defending 1A state champion Brett Johnson in the lineup.

So there’s some good golf being played in Clark County.

GIRLS SOCCER

There was a battle for first place Tuesday in the 3A Greater St. Helens League, and the Prairie Falcons came out on top.

Led by goals from Zilha Ramic, Maddie Barton and Payton Meisner, plus the solid play in goal of Bailey Dolph, the Falcons beat Kelso 3-0 to improve to 3-0-0 in the 3A GSHL. Kelso and Camas are in second at 2-1-0.

Skyview also took over first place in the 4A GSHL with a 2-1 win over Evergreen. Sydnee Smith had a goal and an assist for the Storm, who improve to 2-0-2 (8 points). Evergreen fell to 2-1-0 (6 points).

VOLLEYBALL

Camas remained tied for first place in the 3A GSHL with a nail-biting victory over Columbia River.

Things started out well enough for the Papermakers, who won the first two sets 25-18, 25-18.

But River battled back to edge out Camas 28-26 and 26-24 to even the match a two sets each. Camas escaped in the final set 15-13. Brindl Langley had 19 kills and Tatum Schroeder added 13 for Camas (3-0). Columbia River was led by Grace Boyer-Quick’s 20 kills and Katie Trimble’s 18.