By John Leggett

The Courier-Herald

The Sumner High cross country team may be destined for one of its best seasons yet. When the Spartans ran at the Fort Steilacom Invitational Saturday, the improvements were obvious to coach Kristin Martin.

She said the last time her team ran on that course was in the 2008 subdistrict meet, when her current leader on the girl’s side of things, senior Stefani Castile, finished with a time of 21 minutes, 13 seconds. This year Castile crossed the finish line at 20:11.

“It is very apparent that Stefani took her summer training very seriously as she is running very well right now,” Martin said.

On the boy’s team, one of the season’s aspirations was to get its top five to all finish inless than 20 minutes. They already achieved that goal at Fort Steilacoom, as junior leader Jobe Layton finished at 18:05, followed by Reid Selmer, 19:12, Anthony Bertolucci, 19:15, Nick Fullmer, 19:27, Brian Judkins, 19:38 and Cory Brandt, 19:51.

Sumner hosts Clover Park, White River and Capital on its new Cascadia course at 4:30 p.m. today, Wednesday, and heads for Oregon and the Seaside 3-Course Challenge Saturday.