By Ray Hamill — Eureka sophomore Claire Gast capped an outstanding regular season in H-DNL cross country with her fifth victory in five races at the Arcata Sports Complex on Wednesday afternoon.

The impressive Gast once again outpaced the field by a huge margin, crossing the finish line of the 5K course in a time of 22 minutes, 11.2 seconds.

Wednesday’s event was the sixth and final race of the H-DNL regular season and Gast and her fellow competitors will now turn their attention to the upcoming league championships, which will be held at the Arcata Marsh a week from Saturday.

Arcata sophomore Zoe Cappuccio placed second on Wednesday, almost a minute behind the impressive Gast.

Cappuccio finished in a time of 23:01.00 and was one of six Arcata girls to place in the top nine as the Tigers once again comfortably took the team victory.

The impressive Fortuna duo of Brida Lester (23:08.20) and Alexa McCall (23:11.70) placed third and fourth, barely two seconds apart, followed by Arcata’s Sydney Ventuleth in fifth with a time of 23:49.90.

Arcata’s Quincy Kelly, Nehlia Espiritu-Blackstone, Madison Trieu and Sonya Chisholm placed sixth through ninth, repsectivley, with Eureka’s Summer Morales founding out the top 10 on the day.

Zakayla Robinson led the way for the Del Norte girls in 14th, with Kiara Weldon leading the way for McKinleyville in 20th and Hoopa’s Kiera Maloney pacing the Warriors in 26th.

The Tigers took the team win with 28 points, followed by Fortuna (50) and Eureka (54).

Arcata sophomore Evan Poston got his first career league win in the boys race.

Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Claire Gast in action at the Arcata Sports Complex on Wednesday.