Siuslaw senior Celie Mans was about the only Vikings girl not to run a personal best Thursday, but she was still the best at the Far West League cross country championships at Tugman State Park.

Mans repeated as district champion in 18 minutes, 45.67 seconds for the 5,000 meters, and now looks to repeat next week as the Oregon School Activities Association's Class 4A individual champion.

"I wanted to give it a good effort," she said, after crossing the finish line more than a half minute ahead of runner-up Jazmin Chavez of Marshfield.

"It's comforting to run really hard before state, so you're-sure-you-can-do-it kind of thing."

Mans led the Vikings to second place in the team scoring, won by North Bend with 34 points. Siuslaw had 41, South Umpqua 49 and Brookings-Harbor 86. Neither Marshfield nor Douglas had the five runners necessary to compete as a team.

Vikings sophomore Kaeli Ramos was eighth in a personal-record 21:13.61, freshman Hannah Rannow 10th in a personal-record 21:22.20, senior Destinie Tatum 13th in a season-best 21:57.14 and freshman Chloe Madden 18th in a personal-record 22:32.27.

"It's been one of my favorite courses," Tatum said of the Tugman course. "It's kind of like a figure 8, and I like the figure 8.

"You will run like the same thing twice, so you'll know the second time around what you have to put up with. It's predictable."

What may be hard to predict is how the Vikings will do at the state championships Nov. 5 at Lane Community College in Eugene. Siuslaw is the defending champion, but the Vikings may have to up their game another notch to be competitive at state.

But given how well they bounced back from a recent bug sweeping the school, who knows.

"We had homecoming, and everyone got sick, like the whole school," Mans said. "Everyone was sick and puking. Half our team was sick. With a high fever.

"I went to Boise last weekend and missed it. I came back and everyone's, like gone, and it was, 'What happened?'"

Fortunately the Vikings recovered in time for fine showing at district, with four personal bests and a season best among the top six. Only Mans failed to improve on what is a state-best 18:36, which she ran at Tugman earlier this season.

"The time today was a little slow," Mans said of her district race. "I can't think about that. It was bad conditions, worse than last year, which were perfect.

"So I'm happy with it."

She also was happy she got a little competition from Chavez, if only for the first mile.

"I was kind of surprised," Mans said, as Chavez hung close the first third of the race. "But it was a good surprise.

"It's always good to run with someone. You run a little faster."

Next week she'll be running with the state's best Class 4A runners, and she again will be the one to beat.

NOTES

Celie Mans hopes to continue her running career at either Boise State or the University of Idaho. ... "I visited them both, and I like them both a lot," Mans said. "And I visited with the teams. Both are good." ...

Jazmin Chavez, a sophomore at Marshfield, has the Class 4A girls' third-best time this season of 19:05.3. ... Philomath freshman Hannah Hernandez has the second best at 18:53.5 and Mans the best at 18:36.0, which she ran at the North Bend Tugman Invitational on Sept. 14. ...

Athletic.net has Tillamook easily winning the girls title in a hypothetical race, based on individual times this season. ... If form holds, Tillamook would have 90 points to 147 by Philomath. North Bend would be fourth with 190 and Siuslaw tied for seventh with 236. ...