The girls cross country team has earned the chance to defend its back-to-back state titles after taking first place at regionals Saturday.
Junior Hanna Keltner said she couldn’t be more proud of the team for making it back to state.
“I’m really proud of all my teammates. I’m proud of how they performed today. All those hard workouts and hard runs have finally paid off, and it feels really nice,” Keltner said.
Keltner was the regional champion with a time of 19:31.44. Senior Sydney Owens joined Keltner in the top 10 as she took fourth place with a time of 20:33.06. Here is how the rest of the girls team placed at Johnson County Community College:
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Sophomore Addison Williams: 11th, 21:14.91
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Senior Addison Metcalf: 15th, 21:32.36
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Senior Sophie Whalen: 17th, 21:56.76
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Senior Jayla Erpelding: 19th, 22:35.98
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Sophomore Camila Garcia: 26th, 23:18.88
The Cardinals beat out Baldwin for first place, the team they lost to at the Frontier League meet on Oct. 12.
Keltner said the Cardinals have been using that loss to Baldwin to motivate themselves for Saturday’s regional race.
“All week we’ve just been telling each other like when we were doing workouts like, ‘Baldwin’s right in front of you, come on,’” Keltner said. “It was fuel to our fire.”
Wamego placed third to qualify for state as well.
Head coach Jim Barnard liked the extra spark the team had ahead of regionals and hopes it will follow them to state next weekend.
“We haven’t had that look in our eyes all season, so it was kind of nice to get back to that,” Barnard said. “When you’re chasing for years, like we were doing before we started winning the last couple of years, it’s easy to kind of have that look in your eyes and kind of have that hunger. We haven’t really looked very hungry this year to go out and win again. But we looked motivated today, we looked like we wanted it.We just got to carry that over into one more week.”
As the back-to-back defending state champions, the Cardinals are expecting to have a target on their back at state.
However, Metcalf said the team can use this to their advantage.
“It’ll definitely push us to try and run faster. Just one girl at a time, you know, and just keep pushing it,” she said.
Only four teams have won at least three straight state championships in girls cross country history at the 4A level.
Ulysses High School won four straight from 1979-82. Topeka-Hayden won three straight from 1992-94. Ottawa won four straight from 1996-99, and Baldwin won five straight from 2007-11.
On the boys side, the team just missed the cut for state by placing fourth overall Saturday. The top three teams advance to state.
Wamego, Tonganoxie and Baldwin were the top three boys teams, respectively.
Barnard said the boys team had an uphill battle going in and knew it would be a close call on whether the team would make it or not.
“Going in, we kind of thought it was going to take a really great effort,” Barnard said. “We gave a great effort today, but it just wasn’t quite enough.”
Although the boys team couldn’t extend its state appearance streak to five, two boys finished in the top 10 to individually qualify for state. Senior Zach Arnold was the regional champion with a time of 16:26.56 and senior Alex Clobes placed sixth with a time of 17:31.01.
While he wishes the boys team could join him and Clobes at state, Arnold said he hopes this only lights a fire under the rest of the Cardinals for next season.
“We ran pretty fast, but it’s a real bummer, though, that our boys didn’t qualify. I was really looking forward to it for the fifth year in a row,” Arnold said. “Hopefully, I mean, this is Alex and I’s last year, we’re going, but I hope this helps motivate them and get them ready for the offseason and give them some motivation for next year as well.”
Arnold was the runner-up at state last season and said he has been waiting to get back to state to have one last shot at being the state champion.
“It’s been on my mind all year, and this summer and everything. That’s what I’ve been training for,” Arnold said. “That’s the ultimate goal and I’m just hoping to do everything I can this week leading up to it to get me ready and prepared for that.”
Clobes said he exceeded his own expectations at regionals by placing sixth and he hopes he can do the same at state.
Clobes said he just has to maintain a positive mental attitude to do well at state.
“I think a lot of it is mentality. If you go in with a mindset of, ‘I’m just going to get in there, I’m going to get this place, and then if I can, I can pick off more people,’” Clobes said. “As long as you can follow through on that, it’s just mentality. Whoever wants it, gets it, usually.”
Barnard said this week of practice for the team will be more about getting healthy than anything.
“There’s not really a lot we can do to kind of gain fitness at this point,” he said. “We’re still gonna do the workouts that we normally do, the reps are just less. We kind of back off a little bit, we try and get our legs back under us and kind of get really fresh, as fresh as we can be.”
Barnard said the team will also do something fun together, such as a costume race or team talent show, to relieve some of the stress on the kids before state.
The state race will take place Saturday at Wamego Country Club. Arnold and Clobes will start things off for the Cardinals at 10 a.m. while the girls will start at 11:45 a.m.
Reach reporter Jack Denebeim at [email protected]
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