Five Nanooks compete at State cross country running championships in Anchorage

Five Nanooks competed at the state DII cross country running championships in Anchorage last Saturday, October 2. Senior Granite Peacock was the best finishing Nanook, coming in 13th place with a time of 17:42. Gabe Tran placed 29th , with a personal best time of 18:48. Rowan Moore took 46th place with a time of 19:29. In all, 68 boys raced in the championship.
With 63 girls starting their race, Noel Pardee took 39th  with a time of 24:53 and Audrey Bruner-Alvanna placed 45th with a personal best time of 25:09.
Saturday was a cold day, but not rainy, said Lahka Peacock, Granite’s father. The ground was in perfect condition – not too hard, not too soft.
Granite admits to not having the race he wanted. The senior had been looking forward to his last cross country meet and wanted to place top five. The winner, Breyden Nottingham of Mountain City Christian Academy, finished in 16:20.4.
At the Big West Region Championships held in Nome the previous weekend, Peacock placed second in a down-to-the-wire finish against Bethel’s Jackson Iverson. At state, Jackson took fifth with a time of 16:56.9 and his brother Cole took second, with a time of 16:44.5.
Still, Granite is not too upset. “Obviously a little disappointed because it didn't go the way I wanted to go for my last race, but it was really fun,” he said. “It was a good trip with the teammates and the coaches for one last time.”
The day of the race was cold, and Granite said it took effort to stay warm before his race. The course is a lot hillier than the course in Nome – lots of rolling hills versus one monster climb, but he said that Nome’s is still a little harder. “It's like people all over, just people cheering basically the whole race,” he said. “You're never really alone. You're either by people cheering or people you're racing against. A whole different atmosphere compared to Nome.”
This was Granite’s last high school cross country race, and he is the only senior on the team for both boys and girls. He said his teammates worked extremely hard this year. “They could definitely do super good as a team next year since they're all young,” he said. “We have a bunch of sophomores and a lot of freshmen, too. So definitely a lot of potential with the group.”
Despite not cinching the result he wanted, he said this season was his favorite ever. “The coaches, my teammates, just made it amazing,” he said. “Just because that one race didn't go the way I wanted to, isn't gonna make me want to quit because of that. I think it just makes me want to work a little bit harder.”
This isn’t the end of his athletic career at Nome-Beltz. Granite is already prepping for his track season in the spring. “I got seven months ‘till track state, so I want to keep on training super hard and hopefully win a state title for track,” he said.
Other notable finishes from the region were a 21st  place for Avery Johnson of Unalakleet in the girls DIII race and 24th and 25th places for Joshua Smith and Dane Johnson, both of Unalakleet in the boys DIII race.
For a full results list, head to https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/284920/info