Sean Richardson, a La Salle senior, will be the only representative of La Salle cross country in the 5K at the OSAA 5A state championship meet on October 31, 2015.

You probably recognize Sean as this year’s homecoming king, but you might not have known that he has also been La Salle’s #1 varsity runner on cross country this entire season. Sean placed 4th overall at districts on October 21 with a time of 16:42. Because the top 5 runners in this race get the opportunity to run at state, he will be going to Eugene to participate in this meet on Saturday.

Sean has been running at La Salle for 4 years now and getting progressively faster times every year. This season, his fastest time is 16:08 at the Oregon City invitational. He has been leading the team the whole season and working hard at every practice. “[To deal with my nerves], I just have to stay focused on running and on my speed the whole race.” Sean says. He says his goal time is around 16:20, which means he will be running less than five and a half minute miles!

“Sean is a great teammate and has led us to reach a lot of our goals this season,” sophomore varsity runner Andy Krueger says. “We’re going to be very sad to lose him next year.”

The boys varsity runners have had a tough few weeks leading up to state. Freshman Jack Hanline, a crucial top runner on the team, broke his arm at the La Salle walkathon and was unable to race for about 2 weeks. Raleigh Slyman, a top 5 runner, hurt his leg and wasn’t able to race at districts. In addition to his teammates’ adversities, Sean has also had a slight calf injury leading up to districts but he only missed one race and still came first for La Salle in every other race.

“His calf is still a little tight… But we’ve worked really hard on trying to manage it, and he’s competed really well for being in that much pain,” head coach Mikel Rathmann said. When asked what is expected of Sean at state this year, Rathmann says, “I’m expecting him to give it his all, like he always does. If he could get under 16:30 on the state course, that would be a solid race for him.”

Good luck this Saturday, Sean! Run like the wind!