Cross country: Marshfield’s Alexander Garcia-Silver matches an old Steve Prefontaine mark while Phoenix’s Kyla Potratz returns to win gold in Class 4A races

Alexander Garcia-Silver entered some harrowed ground on Saturday at the Class 4A cross country state championships at Lane Community College. With a time of 15:22.2, Garcia-Silver became the first Marshfield Pirate to win back-to-back state championships since Steve Prefontaine accomplished the feat in 1968.

“It’s really special, you know. Especially when no one else has done it since,” Garcia-Silver said. “It’s really cool to be able to walk in his footsteps a little bit, and admire him and understand what kind of person he was and understand the hard work it takes to do something special like this.”