Shanna Sparks wasn't able to match her performance of a year ago, but the Carson High School sophomore still cracked the top 10 in the Division I high school girls race of the high-powered Stanford Invitational cross country meet on Saturday.
Sparks, undefeated in Nevada this season, finished eighth in the race with a time of 19 minute, 47 seconds over Stanford's 5,000-meter course. Sparks finished third last year in a race that traditionally features blue chip runners.
For example, Saturday's winner was Hoover High's (Glendale, Calif.) Anita Siraki, who is regarded one of the best prep cross country runners in the nation. Siraki ran 18:12.
Carson's Sara Shaw also ran 22:08 to finish 95th and help the Senators finish 17th in the 34-team field with 408 points. Buchanan (Clovis, Calif.) won the girls team title with 115 points.
Sparks finished 21st individually in the combined results of all five divisions - one second behind South Tahoe freshman Amber Ramos, who ran in the Division II race - and Carson finished 32nd out of 128 teams.
On the boys side, Carson's Daryl Nourse finished 30th in the Division I race with a time of 17:11, Jeff Martin was 103rd (18:19) and Andrew Pederson 105th (18:20).
Carson finished 18th as a team in Division I with 527 points and was 70th in the combined boys team standings. Buchanan finished as the No. 1 team in the boys competition.
In the collegiate competition, Jody Carlsen of Carson City and the University of Nevada ran 19:31 to finish 85th. Erin Seward also finished 83rd in 19:28 for the Wolf Pack, which finished 19th as a team. Lilli Kleinmann of Arkansas won the women's race in 16:55.
Jenny Smokey, a product of Douglas High who now runs for the University of Santa Clara, finished 37th in the open women's race with a 20:01 clocking.
