Liberty hitting stride as postseason nears | Cross country

By Adam McFadden • October 15, 2010 6:32 pm

With a young and talented group of girls, the Liberty cross-country team is hoping to make some noise on the postseason cross-country scene.

“You never really know, but the girls are looking like they’ll be a threat all the way up through districts,” said Liberty coach Mike Smith. “The key is how they perform as a group.”

The Patriots girls team placed seventh at districts last year with a team that featured five freshmen and two sophomores. This year six of the seven are back – sophomores Megan and Michaela Chucka, Allie Wood and Rachel Shaw and juniors Kaily Davies and Aimee Christensen.

Shaw, Christensen and Amy Broska all have top-100, 5,000-meter times in 3A so far this season.

Broska is an impressive freshman with a win under her belt already. She won a meet Oct. 6 against Bellevue and Sammamish.

Smith said the biggest challenge with the girls team at Liberty is getting the athletes to pick cross country instead of other sports like soccer.

“It takes just a couple of them to get the nucleus of a team that people want to join,” Smith said. “The girls are more motivated right now.”

For the boys, Liberty is working past the graduation of standout Eric Bice, who is now running track at Cornell. Smith said the Patriots now have a strong group of guys that he’s trying to improve as a whole.

“We’ve pretty much told the guys what we have to do is be more geared towards running as a group,” he said. “Then have the guys in the group kind of pull each other along.”

Smith said losing Bice in training doesn’t hurt too much because he was so far ahead of the other runners anyway.

“In essence Eric was in his own pace group during the workouts,” Smith said. “He would be pulling away on intervals within the first 15 seconds.”

Standouts for the varsity team this year are junior Tyler Westenbroek, Scott Turner, Nick Knoblich and Alex Velasquez.

Westenbroek is the only returning state competitor from last season. He placed 76th.

Liberty starts the postseason with the KingCo 3A/2A Championships Oct. 21 at Lake Sammamish State Park in Issaquah.