The girls’ and boys’ cross country teams have punched their tickets to state with standout performances from freshman Hanna Keltner who finished first in the girls 5K and sophomore Zach Arnold who finished second in the boys 5K.
Keltner finished with a time of 19:29.55, which was over 30 seconds ahead of the second-place competitor. The girls’ team had four top-10 finishers in a strong showing ahead of state.
“Everyone on the team brings a unique set of skills,” Keltner said. “We have sprinters on this team, we have long distance runners and we all come together and try to bang out a win, so we all kind of just make a whole team and we just work so well together. We all know what it takes to pull out a win like this.”
Sophomore Sydney Owens finished third in the race and credited her teammates for always showing support.
“It pushes me to see my teammate’s success because, no matter what, I’ve had an amazing opportunity to run with them because when it comes to practice, meets, anything, they’re always there to back me up,” she said. “We’re very supportive of each other, and we have a very good opportunity this year and we are all very blessed to be able to work with each other.”
The girls finished with a more comfortable lead at regionals than they did after finishing first at the Frontier League meet. Head coach Jim Barnard noticed their improvement.
“The girls ran better and that was the goal because we didn’t run very well last week at league, but they ran better today,” Barnard said. “We’re happy with that, but we’re not done yet. We got one more week to go. You don’t really accomplish much just getting to state. We have higher aspirations.”
Barnard said regionals can be one of the most stressful weeks because of the survival mentality everyone must adopt. It wasn’t clear if the boys were going to make it to state until late in the race.
“I kind of scored the race a couple times in the middle of the race, so I’d know if we’re in qualifying position or not,” he said. “With about 600 meters to go I knew we were not, and so I was kind of yelling at the boys like ‘every place matters, we’re not in yet, we have to keep pushing,’ and we managed to do that in the last 600 or 700 meters.”
Sophomore Zach Arnold finished only a few seconds away from the first-place finisher.
“This has happened a few times with the same guy, and we’ve kind of created a friendship from that, but it kind of just pushes me,” he said. “Maybe if this race felt a little too relaxed at the beginning, then maybe I try to tire him out at the beginning and just push myself a little harder right there. It’s just playing to the strategy that me and my coaches have been trying to formulate this season.”
Each runner’s placement is crucial when trying to qualify for the next meet, and Arnold was quick to give credit to teammate Alex Clobes.
“I think they definitely know their roles, and we all know what we came here to do and what we need to do,” he said. “Shoutout to one of the boys, Alex Clobes. He pushes himself every day, maybe even too much where sometimes it hurts him, but he’s a great example of how much we fight and how hard we try.”
Clobes finished 29th in the race and said he is excited to be a part of a great team this year.
“We all push ourselves very hard as a team because we got to give our best in order to do our best,” he said. “I’m pretty excited. I’m just glad our team was able to do great because that’s what it’s all about, our team, not any individual person.”
Keltner is familiar with the terrain at Wamego Country Club where the 4A state meet will be held and has a game plan for the race.
“At state, I really just want to stay in the lead pack and just be aggressive,” she said. “Those hills at Wamego are really hard, so I just want to attack those and just try to stay with the lead pack and just see what I can do.”
The state meet starts at 10 a.m. Saturday at Wamego Country Club.
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