Though Yelm High School’s boys cross country team sent just one runner, PJ Walsh, to the WIAA’s 4A state championship meet in Pasco on Saturday, Nov. 9, Tornados head coach Alex McIntire views the 2024 season as a successful building year for the program.
He was proud of the junior runner Walsh, who exceeded expectations at the WIAA’s 4A state meet last weekend. McIntire said Walsh was projected to finish somewhere in the 90s while running in Pasco but ultimately jumped 40 spots and finished in 52nd place out of around 160 athletes with a time of 16 minutes, 24 seconds — making him one of the top returning athletes in the 4A classification next year.
“He ran 20 seconds faster than his oldest brother did as a junior. His oldest brother went on to break all the school records the following year. That’s really encouraging, and I’m very proud of him and happy with the way he ran. He tapped into a whole new level and ran as well as he could’ve on Saturday,” McIntire said. “He went through the first mile to 3 miles at a pace that was as fast as he could possibly run a mile 24 months ago. That was encouraging to see because he looked really strong through that. Early on, he was sitting above his projected spot and was consistently passing people. He looked really strong and ran at a risky pace, but a strong risk. The type of risk you want to take at a state meet.”
McIntire said the experience itself in Pasco was a “really good” one. He said, though the program initially had high hopes of bringing the entire team to the state competition, he believes the Tornados performed as well as they could have.
“I don’t think it was a bad season at all. I just think the rest of the state is that much better this year,” McIntire said. “We brought eight other boys with us to experience the meet. It was a cool way to start the morning. We went on this 11-mile run with 2,500 feet of elevation gain. There were beautiful views of the Tri-Cities,” McIntire said. “[Walsh] ran faster than he’s ever ran before, and beat a lot of guys he wasn’t supposed to. It was a very good day for PJ, and we’re very proud of him.”
The coach added that Walsh’s impressive day looked even stronger considering that the Washington state cross country course “has been called the fourth-hardest course in America.”
Following the conclusion of the state meet, McIntire said the team will travel to Boise, Idaho, next weekend to represent the City of Yelm in the national qualifiers event.
“We’re bringing 18 boys and girls down there to race, and we’re excited for that,” McIntire said. “We look at this like the cherry on top — a fun experience after the season ends. We’ll try to go and get one more solid performance.”
Following the race in Boise, McIntire said the team will enter the recovery phase and begin rebuilding with shorter, easier runs, supplemented with weight training to become stronger.
He hopes to continue building up the boys cross country program entering its second year in the 4A SPSL in 2025.
“We’ll start building back up, and so by December we’re hitting heavy mileage again — about 60 to 70 miles per week,” McIntire said. “We’ll have a huge focus on recruiting. We’ve realized at 4A that the numbers we have are nothing compared to other teams’ numbers. We’re competing against boys teams that have 90 to 100 boys, and we had 25 boys that ran the 5K this season.
“With the guys that we train, I’m very fortunate that my team is very committed. They’re year-round athletes and have the end goal in mind all of the time,” McIntire continued. “They’re very patient, and what I mean by that, I’ve been talking with PJ since his freshman year about what his senior year could look like. Everything is just lining up with the plan. He’s trusted the training. He’s trusted me. He’s relied on his team and his team has relied on him.”
McIntire said there’s no secret to the sport of cross country, that you must work really hard and have self-belief, and with a little bit of talent to back your work ethic — your running career could end up “really well.”
“This was a really good season. You look at the numbers, and it’s the second time we haven’t had a team at the state meet in nine years. We’ve made it every year, except for 2018 and this year. It’s all a matter of perspective,” McIntire said. “The performances they had were actually better than almost every other team to come through Yelm, except for 2019 when we were seventh at state. We’re learning that 4A is a different beast, and what was good enough before isn’t good enough now, but we’re going to rise to the occasion.”
