City-County XC: Wayment dominates for Bonneville; Johnson helps Weber to team sweep
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- Bonneville High cross country runner Nicole Wayment wins the varsity girls competition at the Weber City-County race Wednesday, Sept. 13 at the Weber County Fairgrounds.
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- Weber High cross country runner Garrison Johnson wins the boys varsity competition at the Weber City-County race Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, at the Weber County Fairgrounds.
Around 4:45 p.m Wednesday, a strong windstorm blew into Ogden from the northwest, whipping up dust all over the Ogden business depot at the exact time about 40 boys were getting ready to run a cross country race right into said winds.
Weber High junior Garrison Johnson felt a pit in his stomach doing warmups against the headwind but dealt with it like everyone else during the varsity boys competition of the Weber City-County cross country race Wednesday.
“The whole strategy I took was sticking behind Fremont’s pack in the front and so I stuck behind there and waited until they all dropped, and that ended up being around the last 800 meters of the race,” Johnson said. “By then, coach (Ben) Van Beekum yelled at me to pass as many people as I can.
“So I passed all the people in the front and got the win.”
Johnson won Wednesday’s varsity boys race by less than three seconds, Bonneville junior Nicole Wayment won the varsity girls race in dominant fashion and Weber High swept the team titles on a blustery day that dragged down normal 3-mile race times by more than a minute on the Weber County Fairgrounds course.
Wayment’s win appeared fairly simple. She led midway through, stayed in the lead and ended up with a dominant 27.25-second gap ahead of the next runner.
Johnson, meanwhile, didn’t plan on running behind Fremont’s pack of runners and letting them bear the brunt of the wind.
“That was first-200-meters-of-the-race strategy, so I originally was going to run specific splits that I’d planned because I’ve run this course multiple times. But as soon as we got into that headwind there around the first bend, I scratched my whole plan and just went with my gut,” Johnson said.
Since the course at the fairgrounds makes runners run in all directions, what started as a nasty headwind was also a sidewind and then, down the final stretch, a tailwind that runners could only dream about. The wind knocked down the finish-line arch early in the boys race.
Johnson, who finished in the middle of the pack of last year’s City-County JV race, finished 2.32 seconds ahead of Fremont’s Trevor Carlton for the win. The top five runners in the boys race were separated by a total of 6.8 seconds.
“I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t think I had it in me,” Johnson said. “I came in really bad mentally and after the first 2 miles I was about to drop back, but then I remember this whole week, coach Van Beekum has been mentally preparing us to stick with our spot and it’ll all pay off eventually.”
The tight margins carried over to the boys team race. Weber beat Fremont 34 to 38 in the team standings and the Warriors’ five scoring runners finished first, fourth, eighth, ninth and 12th. Fremont’s five finished second, sixth, seventh, 10th and 13th.
In the girls race, Wayment took the lead about midway through and stayed there. She won by 27.25 seconds and, after crossing the finish line, didn’t appear to be out of breath.
“I felt pretty good. I just knew that I needed to get a gap, you know?” Wayment said. “About like a mile into it I started working on building a gap and then, yeah, I felt pretty good. My stomach hurt, but yeah, I was a little tight.”
Wayment took eighth at City-County and sixth in Region 5 last year. In the spring track season, she won region titles in the 1600 and 3200 meters, and has high goals for this cross country season.
“I’d like to get top 10, probably like top five, at state. Somewhere around there, that’s what I’m hoping for,” she said.
Wayment was joined in the City-County top 10 by teammate Sienna Barton, who was ninth. Barton dominated last year’s City-County girls race with a 39-second win and is the defending Region 5 champion.
Weber comfortably beat Fremont 31 to 55 to win the girls team title with had four runners in the top 10. The Warriors’ five scoring runners went second, third, sixth, seventh and 13th. All seven of their runners finished before any other team had all five of its racers across the line.
GIRLS INDIVIDUAL TOP 10
1. Nicole Wayment, Bonneville, 19:27.07
2. Catherine Wald, Weber, 19:54.32
3. Rodarte Garcia, Weber, 20:02.21
4. Clara Geddes, Ogden, 20:02.91
5. Hailey Atwater, Fremont, 20:11.65
6. Sarah Dye, Weber, 20:20.86
7. Eden Burton, Weber, 20:25.14
8. Taylee Richards, Fremont, 20:32.88
9. Sienna Barton, Bonneville, 20:34.08
10. Julia Draper, Ogden, 20:38.64
GIRLS TEAM SCORES
1. Weber, 31
2. Fremont, 55
3. Ogden, 65
4. Bonneville, 76
5. Morgan, 140
Note: Roy and Ben Lomond had less than five runners, the minimum required for a team score.
BOYS INDIVIDUAL TOP 10
1. Garrison Johnson, Weber, 16:40.73
2. Trevor Carlton, Fremont, 16:43.05
3. EJ Lee, Morgan, 16:45.10
4. Franklin Monson, Weber, 16:46.10
5. Anthony Gonzalez, Bonneville, 16:47.53
6. Conner Smedley, Fremont, 16:54.51
7. Zack Steoger, Fremont, 17:06.31
8. Mason Aardema, Weber, 17:13.34
9. Erik Bryant, Weber, 17:16.68
10. Graham Judkins, Fremont, 17:20.92
BOYS TEAM SCORES
1. Weber, 34
2. Fremont, 38
3. Morgan, 86
4. Ogden, 103
5. Bonneville, 148
6. Roy, 161
7. Ben Lomond, 169
Connect with reporter Patrick Carr via email at pcarr@standard.net, Twitter @patrickcarr_ and Instagram @standardexaminersports.