We don’t usu­al­ly cov­er high school sports here on The Advo­cate, but I’d be remiss if I did­n’t men­tion that my alma mater’s cross coun­try team is com­pet­ing today in the State Cham­pi­onships, coached by my dad, Denis Villeneuve.

The Red­mond Mus­tangs are mak­ing their nine­teenth trip to the state meet, but it’s the first time that the girls team has been ranked No. 1.

They have a good shot at cap­tur­ing the title when they run at Sun Wil­lows Golf Course in Pas­co this afternoon.

I wish I could be there to watch, but my sched­ule did­n’t per­mit me to make the trip over to the Tri-Cities this week­end. So I’ll be cheer­ing from home.

Dad has worked extreme­ly hard over the years to build a strong cross coun­try pro­gram at Red­mond. It’s one of the bet­ter pro­grams in the state. The boys and girls’ teams have each made half a dozen con­sec­u­tive trips to state in the last few years, from a very com­pet­i­tive league (King­co 4A).

I try to go to at least a few meets every year — some­how I man­aged to make it to all the home meets this sea­son, as well as the dis­trict cham­pi­onship meet. So I’ve seen the Red­mond team out on the course, and they are impressive.

Both The Seat­tle Times and the Red­mond Reporter wrote about the Mus­tangs this week. Here’s what the Times’ Sandy Ringer wrote about the team:

Denis Vil­leneuve has had some pret­ty good girls teams at Red­mond in his 27 years as coach. The Mus­tangs fin­ished fourth in the 2007 4A state meet.

This could be his best squad. Red­mond is ranked No. 1 in the final coach­es’ state poll.

“We’re ranked No. 1 and we’d like to be No. 1 at state,” Vil­leneueve said. “We cer­tain­ly should be on the podi­um, which is top-four. That’s the min­i­mum goal. The girls would like to be first, but there are so many vari­ables. We feel we’re as good as all the oth­er teams out there, if not bet­ter. We just have to go in and be con­fi­dent and see what happens.”

That quote real­ly sums up Dad’s out­look on run­ning. Go in, be con­fi­dent, see what hap­pens. Do your best. Reach high, but don’t take any­thing for grant­ed. Don’t let a defeat get you down. It’s a pret­ty good approach to elec­toral pol­i­tics as well.

We’ve got an elec­tion com­ing up in less than a hun­dred hours (bal­lot return dead­line might be more accu­rate). There’s a lot at stake.

The first elec­tion I was involved in as an activist took place nine years ago. There was a lot at stake then, too (there always is). That elec­tion did­n’t go so well. Tim Eyman’s I‑776 nar­row­ly passed and Democ­rats lost con­trol of the U.S. Sen­ate. Those were some of the low­lights. There weren’t many bright spots.

But I resolved not to let the elec­tion results dis­cour­age me from con­tin­u­ing to work against Tim Eyman’s destruc­tive ini­tia­tives. I’m still involved today because of the deci­sion that I made then. Per­se­ver­ance mat­ters. I learned that from Dad.

Win or lose on Tues­day, NPI and Per­ma­nent Defense will con­tin­ue work­ing to raise our region’s qual­i­ty of life. We’ll also con­tin­ue to oppose Tim Eyman’s harm­ful, mis­guid­ed ini­tia­tives. Wash­ing­ton just can’t afford Eyman’s schemes.

Dad has been coach­ing for near­ly three decades. Today, the pro­gram he’s worked so hard to build has a chance to win a state title. That itself is a major accom­plish­ment, one that our whole fam­i­ly is proud of.

But of course, noth­ing would be sweet­er than see­ing Red­mond go all the way this after­noon. So good luck, Dad, and go Mus­tangs! I’ll be root­ing for you.

POSTSCRIPT: Red­mond end­ed up fin­ish­ing third… the girls team ran very well, and even though they did­n’t win the meet, they accom­plished their goal of get­ting into the top four. This is one of the best fin­ish­es in the pro­gram’s his­to­ry. Red­mond was one point shy of tying for sec­ond with Bel­larmine Prep; Tahoma won the meet with 88 points. (In cross coun­try, the low­est score wins).

Red­mond had two girls in the top ten indi­vid­ual fin­ish­ers: Megan LeGres­ley was fifth with a time of 18:22.7. Kelsey Dunn was ninth with a time of 18:41.6. Megan and Kelsey are, not coin­ci­den­tal­ly, Red­mond’s fastest girls. Join­ing them in the top thir­ty was Hol­ly Young, who fin­ished twen­ty-ninth with a time of 19:13.3.

One hun­dred and forty-six girls com­pet­ed in the 4A cross coun­try cham­pi­onship race at Sun Wil­lows. Com­plete results have been post­ed.

The boys’ team is also in the state meet, and will run lat­er today.