COLUMBIA — St. Vincent senior Reagan Meyer finished third with a time of 19 minutes, 28.24 seconds to lead the Lady Indians to a fourth-place finish at the Class 1 state cross country meet Saturday at Gans Creek Recreation Area in Columbia.
“The girls, they ran phenomenally,” said St. Vincent coach John McClain. “They were in sixth place at the [4-kilometer mark] and they were down by 17 points. When I saw that, I was just like, ‘I don’t know that this is going to happen this time around.’ Then they proved me wrong. They made the magic across the board. To come back from that kind of deficit in that last kilometer, that means, essentially, you have to pass collectively 17 kids. Not just any 17, they have to be 17 from actual scoring teams. For them to do something like that was just kind of unbelievable. And it was across the board.”
Four kilometers in, Meyer was 20 seconds behind fourth-place finisher Mya Wray of South Nodaway, and not only managed to catch her in the last kilometer, but also edged her out by a fraction of a second to claim the third-place medal. Wray finished fourth in 19:28.29.
“It was literally a photo finish,” McClain said.
School of the Ozarks won the girls team title with 60 points, followed by Dora with 106 and South Nodaway with 139. The Lady Indians finished with 157 points.
Individually, Norwood’s Jayden Chambers was first in 19:09.35, and Amaya Shafer of St. Paul Lutheran in Concordia was second with a time of 19:19.19. Lillian Bender of Christian Fellowship was fifth in 19:54.61.
For St. Vincent, sophomore Anna Welker was 12th in 20:58.17, senior Audrey Amschler was 33rd in 23:37.28, senior Jocelyn Weibrecht was 58th in 25:09.96, and freshman Adeline Carlton was 61st in 25:14.10.
Senior Sybella Nations was 76th in 28:10.96, and Sybina Nations, also a senior, was 77th in 28:16.75.
“[Amschler] passed 13 girls in that last kilometer, and like seven of them were team points,” McClain said. “It took every single one of them. It was a team effort. It wasn’t just Reagan or even Anna. We needed every last person — every single one of them — and they all ran season-best times. You couldn’t ask for a better performance when it mattered. I’m really proud and grateful.”
On the boys’ side, things were a little more complicated. The Indians only had two runners that qualified for state — junior Carter Henneman and sophomore Luke Ryan. Henneman, battling nausea for much of the day, still managed to turn in an eighth-place performance, finishing with a time of 16:59.34. Ryan was 76th in 18:40.40.
“[Henneman] got some nausea the morning before the race,” McClain said. “Once the race started, it definitely caught up to him. I don’t even know exactly how many times he threw up during the race, but credit to him. He just kept pushing and kept trucking. He finished eighth in the end, which isn’t bad by any stretch, but I think he was hoping for a little bit better. And he was definitely capable of it.
“I was incredibly proud of him, and he should be too, because a lot of people, when they start having problems like that, they just throw in the towel. He hung tough. He’s All-State for the third time in three years — that’s the first time we’ve ever had somebody be All-State their first three years of high school for our team — and now he has a chance to be the first ever to do it all four years.”
School of the Ozarks won the Class 1 boys’ team title with 95 points, followed by Van Buren with 114, and Kingsville with 126. Kellen Robertson of School of the Ozarks won the individual race with a time of 16:15.98, followed by St. Joseph Christian’s Austin Hill (16:36.71) and Vienna’s Hunter Schwartze (16:43.02).
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COLUMBIA — Saxony Lutheran junior Raylee Matthews finished 36th in 21 minutes, 55.43 seconds to lead the Lady Crusaders to an 11th-place finish at the girls’ Class 2 state cross country meet Saturday at Gans Creek Recreation Area in Columbia.
Lexington won the team title with 25 points, followed by West Platte with 116 and Lafayette County with 147. Saxony finished with 257 points.
Individually, Lexington’s Addison Smith and Ellie Lichte finished first and second in 18:33.0 and 18:35.79, followed by Brentwood’s Kensington Curd in 19:05.15. North Platte’s Chloe Heckman was fourth in 19:09.79, and Lexington’s Phoebe Engelbrecht was fifth in 19:25.24.
Rounding out the scoring for Saxony Lutheran, Eva Williamson was 47th in 22:23.85, Briley Meyr was 51st in 22:31.38, Emmy Bengtson was 61st in 22:56.85, and Adalyn Brandhorst was 62nd in 23:00.84. Gretchen Wolfe was 63rd in 23:10.28, and Allee Mckee was 97th in 26:37.82.
On the boys’ side, Saxony Lutheran junior Nicolas Chambless finished 106th in the field of 170 runners with a time of 18:26.15. Wyatt Klaiber of El Dorado Springs claimed the individual title with a time of 14:50.95, followed by Lexington’s Chael Lichte (15:43.47) and Paris’ Landen Chapman (15:46.40).
Woodland won the boys’ team title with 102 points, followed by Thomas Jefferson Independent with 105 and McAuley Catholic with 142.
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COLUMBIA — Perryville senior Clayton Bauwens, the school’s singular representative at the Class 4 state cross country meet Friday at Gans Creek Recreation Area in Columbia, finished 65th with a time of 17 minutes, 27.01 seconds.
“It was a great day, really,” said Perryville coach Shadrick Shafer. “The weather was perfect. Conditions were perfect. Clay was feeling good. He got a really great start and got caught up in some traffic midway through, but he finished hard in the last 1,000 meters. He passed seven kids and ran a negative split. It was a great finish. We were all really hoping he was going to break 17 minutes, but it just wasn’t in the cards.”
Carson Driemeier of Festus won the individual title with a time of 14:49.18, followed by Notre Dame’s Aidan Morris (15:30.93) and St. Charles’ Elijah Case (15:48.62). Carson Koerber of DeSoto was fourth in 15:56.85, and Lucas Amador of Parkway Central was fifth in 15:58.42.
