The 2A-District 7 cross country team titles might have been won by Vale for both the boys and girls, but Krista Stangel, Monique McKenzie and D.J. Lincoln will have the opportunity to represent Enterprise and Wallowa high schools in the state meet on Saturday at Lane Community College in Eugene.

Krista Stangel, a senior at EHS, is the only member of the Outlaw girls team to qualify for the state meet, but she has been down this road before.

Stangel is returning to Eugene as the defending 2A state champion and looks to hold her title against a field of tough competition.

“Krista has been running good races all year and qualifying for the state meet just shows how hard she has worked,” said EHS head coach Dan Moody.

Last year, Stangel outran the entire field by 23 seconds on her way to first place, but will be up against district winners from all over the state including: Freshman Hayley Ney from Caitlin Gabel and Eva Vaquera from Kennedy, who won her district race in 19:28. Kelsey Greydanus from Monroe, Nykia Corbett from Myrtle Point, Alayna Oleksa from Portland Waldorf and Lindsay Gasik from St. Mary’s were all district champions and ran times under 20:20.

For Wallowa sophomore McKenzie, this cross country season has been a pleasant surprise. At the beginning of the year she was a first-time runner, feeling things out race by race, but through hard work and extensive training, she ran the race of her life at the district meet Oct. 28 and placed seventh, the last qualifying spot, with a time of 21:39.

“I am really excited and a little surprised,” McKenzie said. “At the beginning of this year I was just trying to improve every time I ran a race.”

McKenzie has improved her time at every race this season. When she began this season she was running races in 24 minutes or more and she attributes her improvement to hard work and her focus on endurance training.

Her goal for the state meet is to place in the top 20, she said.

The only boys qualifier from Wallowa County was Enterprise’s D.J. Lincoln, who ran his fastest time ever, 18:07, to place seventh and qualify for the state meet .

Lincoln along with the entire boys field will be up against stiff competition from seveal district winners: District 1 winner Jacob Goertz from North Clackamas Christian, District 6 winner Michael Mrkvicka from New Hope Christian and District 3 winner David Rannabargar from Regis, who all ran sub-17 minute times.

“I would like to see D.J. place in the top-20 and improve on his time,” Moody said. “I have confidence that he will rise to the competition at state.”

The girls field this year will consist of 118 runners from 30 different high schools, while the boys race will have 116 participants from 31 schools.

The girls race will start at 12 p.m. and the boys will begin at 2:30 p.m.