It’s that second mile, the one up the hill behind South Whidbey High School, that runners need to watch carefully.

So it was for Falcon cross country teammates Emily Martin and Chantal White, who are headed to state finals at Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco this weekend.

At the District 1 regional championships on Saturday, Martin ran the 3.1-mile course in 20 minutes, 16.64 seconds to place 14th. White placed 17th with 20:17.93.

They competed against 14 other

2A schools; runners needed to be in the top 20 to qualify for state. Annie Moore from Sehome placed first with 18:54.41.

“I wish we’d won as a whole team but I’m pretty excited,” Martin said.

“I was trying to break 20 minutes, but that second mile is a killer. I felt comfortable and had enough left to speed up when I hit the track.”

White said it’s great to be able to represent her school at a big statewide meet. She noted that though it was wet and soggy on Saturday, the varsity girls were first out of the gate at 11:30 a.m.

“It wasn’t too bad, except behind the visitors grandstand,” she recalled. “I started slow then sped up at the end because I think a lot of girls weren’t aware of the hill.”

Falcon coach Doug Fulton noted this was only the second time in 20 years South Whidbey hasn’t qualified a girls team to state, but he was proud of the girls.

“Emily and Chantal stepped up and ran great races, our district is extremely competitive and placing in the top 20 individually is quite an accomplishment,” he said.

“As a team, we were disappointed to finish just 22 points out of the top four that are needed to qualify,” he said. “A few nagging injuries hindered some of our veteran girls but they have a lot to be proud of, with three league titles, two top six state places and two academic state championships.”

This was the fifth year South Whidbey has hosted District 1 championships. A total of 36 2A, 3A and 4A schools were on hand, with more than 2,000 runners competing.

Martin and White won’t be alone in Pasco this weekend. The entire Falcon varsity girls team will attend because the South Whidbey cross country girls are state academic champions for the second straight year with a combined 3.94 grade point average. It’s the second highest GPA, after Mount Vernon High School, for all schools at every level.

“That’s an amazing accomplishment by itself and their parents, the school and community should be very proud of them,”

Fulton said.

Behind Martin and White were Falcons Caroline Habel with 21:01.44; Jessica Cary, 21:58.63; Courtney Bosman, 22:01.31; Taya Jae, 22:12.48 and Cassie Bosman, 22:34.07.

Falcon Blake Koszarek finished the course against 96 boys in 29th place in a time of 17:33.04. Connor Whan of Burlington-Edison was first for the boys with 16:28.63.

Overall, the boys team came in 12th place, ahead of Sultan and Granite Falls.

Koszarek knew ahead of time the competition would be tough.

“I got off to a slower start than usual, and was a little worried when I saw lots of guys go fast at the start,” he said. “But the key is to take it slow the first mile; the last mile is downhill and I let it all out.”

Koszarek, a sophomore, plans to run the mile and 2-mile events in track in the spring and work hard next summer to improve his performance times.

“Next year to state is the goal,” he said.

After Koszarek for the boys were Ben Saari in 17:58.92; Scott Stallman, 18:06.40; Dean Freundlich, 18:44.58; Jasper Tyler, 19:16.82 and Will Zink, 20:10.94.

Overall, of the schools attending, South Whidbey’s boys placed sixth with 143 points, behind Cedarcrest, Sehome, Squalicum, Bellingham and Lakewood.