Three Oak Harbor High School runners qualified for the state cross country meet at the district finals Saturday, Nov. 2, at South Whidbey.

Wildcat senior Dallas Riddle-Stevens, sophomore Cooper Billiter and freshman Adrienne Root earned state berths by placing in the top 28 at district.

The state meet is Saturday, Nov. 9, at Pasco’s Sun Willows Golf Course. The 3A girls race begins at 1 p.m. and the boys at 2:30.

This is Riddle-Stevens third trip to state, and the first for Billiter and Root.

In the district team standings, the Oak Harbor boys took sixth and the girls 10th out of 14 schools.

Arlington, led by individual champion Aiden Emerson (16:19.08), dominated the boys meet with five runners placing in the top eight for 24 points. Snohomish was a distant second at 102. Oak Harbor tallied 181.

Arlington also won the girls meet with 70 points. The Wildcats had 238.

Marysville Getchell’s Jasmine Nguyen took the girls title with a time of 18:53.3 over the 5,000-meter course.

For the Oak Harbor boys, Riddle-Stevens was fourth (16:27.51) out of 96, Billiter 19th (17:23.4), Ryan Metz 38th (17:55.32), Ralph Ramier 57th (18:33.87), Anthony Herrera 63rd (18:41.83), Jacob Pearson 66th (18:43.23) and Brandon Parham 80th (19:23.64).

Root paced the Wildcat girls by placing 11th, and first among freshmen, in 20:08.2. Courtney VanGiesen was 45th (22:06) out of 93, Evelyn Osburn 57th (22:39.6), Alexis Kunze 62nd (23:08.6), Sonja Wichmann 63rd (23:10) and Natalie French 66th (23:33.2).

Cooper Billiter runs to runs to 19th place and a spot in the state cross country meet. (Photo by John Fisken)

Adrienne Root finished finished 11th in the district meet, earning a berth at state. (Photo by John Fisken)