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Following first place finishes at the league and regional meets, the Cardinals were prepared to head to Wamego and defend their 4A state title.

The girls parlayed their championship experience into a second consecutive 4A state championship Saturday. They also made school history in the process. The girls’ cross country team is the first to win two state championships and the first to win them back-to-back. 

Junior Sydney Owens finished second with a time of 19:51.24 with sophomore Hanna Keltner following closely behind to finish third. Senior Phoebe Fletcher came in 15th to give the team three finishers in the top 15.

Owens knew it would be tough with rival teams eager to take first place and knock off the defending champs.

“It’s really amazing, and it just makes me really excited that we did it this year and we have a great group of girls to celebrate,” she said. “We had a target on our back all year, and it’s cool to see how, under pressure, we could still come out and compete.”

Senior Liz Mueting gushed about having the opportunity to win another state championship with her teammates that she views as family. Though the team was favored to win at state, she acknowledged there was some uncertainty after last year’s seniors graduated.

“At the beginning of the season, we were kind of told that we were gonna win, so it’s unreal that it actually ended up working out,” she said. “It’s not like we doubted it, but we were just so excited that we kept going hard and strong because we lost a lot of seniors last year. We were kind of nervous, but we ended up working hard.”

Head coach Jim Barnard played down his role on the team, saying the girls are the reason for the team’s success.

“They put in all the work. I just write the training plans,” he joked. “But they’re the ones that do all the hard work, so I’m just so happy for them.”

Barnard anxiously crunched numbers to see if the girls finished first at state last year, but the finish was slightly more relaxed this year.

“It was more relief because we had beaten all the teams throughout the course of the season that we were racing today, so we knew we were capable of doing it,” he said. “But all the races in the past don’t matter today. You have to go out there and actually do it again. I was confident that we could do that, but it was definitely relief when it was over.”

Junior Addison Metcalf was caught off guard when she heard Baldwin’s team cheer after the race and briefly thought they had claimed first place. In reality, Baldwin had come in second.

“I heard Baldwin cheer and it got me scared, but it’s good to come out with a win,” she said. “I think the confidence level has definitely boosted so much more from last year and this year coming together, so now we just want it for a third year now.”

The future of the team

After making school history, Keltner admitted she didn’t place where she wanted, but she believes the recent team success will help continue to build a winning culture.

“It’s something that’s never been done before, so it’s amazing that we’ve done this and we get to witness history and be a part of history,” she said. “I think the team culture is going to be even better and we’re gonna be much more positive and we’re gonna be as hard-working as we were this year.”

Winning a second straight title allowed Fletcher to receive the same championship sendoff she helped provide last year’s seniors with. She echoed Keltner’s thoughts on the team moving forward.

“It feels pretty surreal, like it’s exciting and I’m really happy,” she said. “I think it gives a lot of encouragement to the younger people on the team, like, ‘Yeah, we can do this,’ and so I think the team is going to keep progressing.”

The team will face challenges next year after their two seniors, Fletcher and Mueting, finished their careers on a high note. Barnard knows this is not exclusive to Eudora, and he will have to find ways to keep the team competitive.

“We definitely need to do some work, probably recruiting some spots that we’re graduating for sure, but every team goes through that every year,” Barnard said. “Every team is looking to their eighth grade program to see who’s coming up and who wasn’t out for cross country in middle school that we could convince to come join us.” 

Barnard spoke about how the girls’ cross country program has changed in his six years as coach.

“Before I got here, there wasn’t necessarily that expectation of ‘This is who we are, what we can do and what we can be every year,’” he said. “This is my sixth year, and I think we’ve got that now. All the kids in the program now were not in the program when I got here, and we kind of built that up and now we expect to be here, we expect to be competing on the biggest stage every year.”

Now, there will be an even bigger target on their backs. Undoubtedly, there’s another Eudora, another upstart team looking to dethrone the back-to-back champions. But for now, the title remains in Eudora and the quest for a three-peat begins.

Keltner, never one to shy away from professing her love for her teammates, shared one more message about them.

“I love my teammates,” she said. “Phoebe is the best senior ever.”

Zach Arnold finishes second in the boys’ race

Junior Zach Arnold didn’t let any excitement or butterflies prevent a good night’s sleep before his stellar performance at state. He finished as the 4A state runner-up and the boys’ team finished ninth.

“I got a good night’s sleep, surprisingly, because I was so excited I didn’t know if I was ever going to get to bed,” he said. 

Arnold came to Wamego with a chip on his shoulder after he saw where he was ranked among the other runners. The perceived slight may have fueled him during the race, as he finished with a time of 16:31.61.

“I was so happy with myself because I was telling my parents and my coaches, I was like, ‘I think before this I was ranked somewhere in the fourth to seventh region’ and I was like, ‘Guys, I feel great. I feel like I can beat all those guys that are ranked ahead of me,’ and I proved it today.”

See our videos and photos from state cross country on our Facebook page.

Reach Chris Fortune at [email protected].