One of the youngest mountain bike racers in the field was one of the top finishers in the 17th edition of the High Cascades 100.

More than 300 riders made the 5:30 a.m. start on Saturday, battling the heat and the dust to race in the 100-mile mountain bike race through the Deschutes National Forest west of Bend.

Jack Billowitz, a 16-year-old and soon-to-be senior at Bend High, crossed the finish line at the Athletic Club of Bend in 7 hours, 10 minutes, 40 seconds to finish 10th.

“I thought coming in that I was going to finish in this range,” Billowitz said. “I was aiming for somewhere between 6:45 and 7:15 (times) and I finished in that range. It was pretty mind-boggling going back and forth on some parts of the trail. It was a really mentally challenging course.”

It was the second time in as many weekends that Billowitz had a strong showing in an endurance sports competition.

On July 13 at Hagg Lake in Gaston, Billowitz won his second straight Youth Cross Triathlon National Championship. He placed first in all three events to finish the 750-meter swim, 22-kilometer mountain bike course and the 5K trail run in 1:32.52.9 to repeat as national champion.

“I just like the events,” Billowitz said. “I do my fair share of triathlons. When I was pretty little I had tried a couple of triathlons, then I didn’t do them when Covid hit. But then last year I started ramping up and doing some longer ones.”

Mountain View grad wins women’s race

A mixup during the High Cascades race proved to be beneficial for 2011 Mountain View graduate Chloe Spritz. For the first two-thirds of the race, she thought that she was chasing another women’s rider. Spritz, who finished second in the women’s race last year, was doing all she could to keep up.

“It turned out to be a guy I was chasing around mile 67,” said the 32-year-old Spritz. “I came out hot, my heart rate was 174 beats per minute for the first five hours. I backed it down once I realized I had a lead and took things conservatively. I went from chase mode to conservative mode. I just wanted to ride gently and not wreck the bike.”

Spritz, who now lives in Portland, won the women’s race and finished 19th overall with a time of 7:34:07. She was the only women’s racer to finish in the top 20 overall. The next closest was Kjersti Gedde, of Carbondale, Colo., who placed 45th overall in 8:09:16.

Although the course was “a little light on the climbing,” according to Spritz, with much of the terrain on dirt roads, the course still had 8,384 feet of elevation gain.

“The course was a little different this year,” Spritz said. “It suited my strengths a little bit better. I should have put on different tires. I was going with my fast tires.”

Bend’s Joelle Debban finished third in the women’s race in 8:20:50, and Alison Rhoads, also of Bend, placed fourth in 8:26:21. Another Bend rider, Maya Holzman, took seventh in 9:15:50.

Australian Bird repeats as men’s champion

Matthew Bird, a 29-year-old from Adelaide, Australia, won the men’s High Cascade race for the second consecutive year.

Bird, who also won the mountain bike race at Bend Dirt Fest on July 12, finished in 6:23:20 to repeat as champion. Throughout the course, Bird averaged more than 15 miles per hour.

Three Central Oregon racers finished in the top 10. Landon Farnsworth, of Redmond, finished third (6:46:38), Bend’s Jordan Sirtoli placed fifth (6:54:51) and Elijah Krause, also of Bend, took ninth in 7:09:00.