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post-season recap and what can be labeled as an opinion piece
After over three months of cross country, the 2022 season has finally come to an end, at least for the Kansas athletes. The only meet left of the year is the Champs Sports Cross Country Championships (formerly Eastbay, formerly Foot Locker). There weren’t any Kansas athletes that made it out of the Midwest region in Kenosha, meaning our season as we know it has come to its conclusion. Highlighted by Nike Cross Nationals and Garmin RunningLane Cross Country Championships, along with the NCAA DII National Championships, both the high school and collegiate seasons ended last weekend.
Up in Seattle, WA, quite a few Kansas schools and alumni toed the line on a chilly day, when the best of the best in Division II were putting it all on the line. In terms of Kansas programs competing, Pittsburg State qualified on both the women’s and men’s side, with Washburn sending its men’s team to Seattle.
Pittsburg State’s Lara Murdock was the top finisher from Kansas on either side, placing 13th in 20:55, her third consecutive trip under twenty-one minutes for 6k. Fort Hays State frontrunner Regan Hodsden snagged All-American honors as well, finishing 40th in 21:20.8. The @girlrillasontherun finished 17th as a team in the championship field, their highest finish since 2018.
Former state champion and Gardner-Edgerton legend Trent Cochran capped off his career at Colorado Christian in one of the best ways possible, taking 31st in 30:24.8, avenging his finish from last year where he was one of many runners to have problems with the Tallahassee heat. This year, Cochran left nothing up to chance, finishing third on his team and helping the Cougars take third in the nation.
Also earning All-American honors was Pittsburg State’s Matthew Oglesby, as he took 38th in 30:27.7, leading the way for the Gorilla men. They took 20th overall, putting three in the top one-hundred. David Kibet, who placed 54th in 30:47.1, led the Ichabod men to a 26th place finish. This was the first time the program had ever fielded a complete team at the championship, making this the highest finish in program history. A lot of these athletes will be back in action faster than we know it, as the collegiate indoor track & field season has already begun.
I know it’s nearly two weeks from Christmas, but it means it’s now the perfect time to recap the NAIA Cross Country National Championships that happened before Thanksgiving. The venue of choice was Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee, FL, the same site of the 2021 NCAA DI Cross Country National Championships.
The St. Mary Spires were the highest finishers on both the women’s and men’s side, as the women placed 7th and the men placed 11th.
The Spires were led by Alyssa Armendariz who led the way for all Kansas finishers, placing 16th in 17:47, followed by teammate Riley Hiebert at 23rd in 17:53. Both Benedictine and Haskell joined St. Mary in Florida, as the Ravens took 14th and Haskell took 34th. Benedictine was led by Carolin Cobo, who took 49th in 18:21, while Haskell was led by Tiajhae Nez, who placed 189th in 19:35.
On the men’s side, St. Mary was led by Brig Merritt, who finished in 37th and earned All-American honors. Merritt ran 24:54, a few seconds back of his PR. KCAC champion and Friends frontrunner Logan Horning edged out Merritt by a few spots, taking 35th in 24:49. The NAIA season is already off and running again, as indoor track & field started last weekend.
There were quite a few Kansas high school athletes competing in Portland, OR, and Huntsville, AL, last weekend, competing in either Nike Cross Nationals or Garmin RunningLane.
Up in Portland, the ladies of Olathe West ended their dream season on the biggest stage. You’re probably aware of this by now, but this Owl’s squad was the FIRST ever girls’ team from Kansas to make it out of the Heartland region. They did so by finishing second behind Wayzata, earning the second and final automatic qualifying spot for the NXR Heartland. Last Saturday, they finished 16th, which is the highest ever finish by ANY Kansas team at NXN in history! In 2004, the boys of Shawnee Mission Northwest finished 18th, and in 2007 they finished 21st. For West, I’d argue that’s a pretty solid debut!
Individually, the Owls were led by junior Bree Newport, who finished 70th in 18:26. Senior duo Charis Robinson and Paige Baker both finished 127th and 128th, each running 19:10. Juniors Kate Miller and Kalyn Willingham rounded out the top five, finishing in 19:31 and 19:37. Freshman Sydney All and senior Liz Browning were 157th and 169th, each running 19:40 and 19:59, putting all seven ladies under twenty.
On the boy’s side, Kansas was represented by one of the fastest runners in Kansas history, and possibly the greatest runner in St. Thomas Aquinas history, which is a feat in itself. Senior Colby King capped off his dream season with the highest individual finish by a male Kansan at Nike Cross Nationals since Stuart Mcnutt (Blue Valley West ‘15) took 10th in 2014. King put together one of the most efficient and impressive seasons we’ve seen in recent memory, finishing in the top five eight times, and running under fifteen on two occasions, making him just the third Kansan to ever accomplish that feat. Up in Portland, OR, King crossed the line as the 23rd fastest finisher, running 15:25.
Congratulations to all of the ladies of Olathe West and Colby for their historic seasons, and especially their coaching staff who helped get them to where they are today!
Speaking of historic seasons, we can’t forget about our athletes that raced down in Huntsville, AL. I said it once and I’ll say it again. Wyatt Haughton is him. He ran in ten races this season, winning five of them, and running under fifteen three times (the only athlete in Kansas history to do so). He also broke sixteen all ten times, with all but one of his races being 15:31 or faster, averaging out to a 15:14.57, which is ridiculous. At Garmin RunningLane, Haughton left it all out there, as he was the runner-up in the Gold race, just three seconds behind the champion. On a very sloppy, muddy and beat up course by the time he took the line, Haughton still managed to run 15:12, which I still can’t wrap my brain around. Haughton and his fellow Lancers took 17th as a team, ahead of twelve other schools.
In the Bronze race, Blue Valley Southwest senior Micah Paschke found himself on the podium, taking 3rd in 15:46.40, just a second off of his PR.
This past weekend, I spent my time in Huntsville, AL, for the Garmin RunningLane Cross Country Championships, one of the two national high school meets that took place last Saturday. For full disclosure, if you didn’t already know, I’m currently interning for Garmin, and I had the opportunity to travel down to Huntsville and experience the meet firsthand. For the past two years, the meet has taken the place of the absent Nike Cross Nationals and has been home to both the boys and girls high school national records, leading it to be tabbed as “PRVille.” This year, the weather was less than ideal, as a lot of rain soaked the course in the days leading up to the meet, providing athletes with a sloppy, wet and uneven championship course. This year the times weren’t as fast as years past, but from what I witnessed, every athlete I saw had a smile on their face at the end of the day. Maybe it was when they were sliding around in the mud after their race, or it could have been when they were jumping into the pond to celebrate the end of their season and laughing with their teammates.
An athlete’s enjoyment is all that matters, right? If an athlete doesn’t qualify for NXN, or doesn’t even run in any of the regionals, it’s okay for them to opt in favor of Garmin RunningLane or Champs (Eastbay, Foot Locker), right? Because it shouldn’t matter how an athlete decides to end their season, as long as they are given the chance to compete and enjoy the sport.
After I landed on Sunday, I was scrolling through Twitter as our plane was making its way towards my gate at KCI, and I saw a pair of tweets that in all honesty, made me pretty frustrated and disappointed. But before I dive in, I want to preface this first. This has nothing to do, and I mean nothing to do with the ladies of Olathe West or Colby King of St. Thomas Aquinas, or the respective coaching staff. I couldn’t have been happier for all of the athletes that had the chance to compete at NXN, because they earned it. From what I saw, their experience was top notch and they represented our state in the best way they possibly could have. So before I continue, I just want to make sure that is known. Additionally, I have nothing against Nike or Nike Cross Nationals. When I was in high school, I would have loved to have had the chance to compete at NXN, but my skill set proved not even remotely enough to gain that opportunity. NXN is a historic and prestigious event, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for those behind the meet and the athletes that get the opportunity to compete.
“RunningLane is just the manifestation of “everyone gets a trophy”. Can’t qualify for NXN or Champs? Go to RunningLane.”
“The beauty of NXN is that time doesn't matter, only place. At RunningLane the only thing that really matters is time, so if conditions aren't great, it's a waste. And in the end XC is all about place, not time.”
I mean what are we doing? As a former athlete, and a big advocate of the sport, especially at the high school level, these both frustrated me. But before I carry on, let me hit you with the statistics.
This year there were nine separate Nike Cross Regions across the country, which includes the California state meet. Across the nine regions, 6534 girls competed in the championship and open races, as well as 691 total teams. On the boys’ side, there were 9482 individuals who competed, along with 933 scoring teams. Out of the 15,000+ athletes that raced in their respective NXR, 393 total athletes, or roughly 2.5% of those athletes were able to compete at the first edition of Nike Cross Nationals since 2019. For the team numbers, again, roughly just 2.5% of the teams had the chance to make it out of their region. What were the rest of the athletes that still wanted to compete supposed to do, just call it quits? There were state record holders, state champions and program legends that didn’t make it out of their region. What are we supposed to tell those kids who don’t want their season to be over? What if those kids are trying to get their time down for prospective college coaches, or what if they have a barrier to hit to earn them more scholarship money? What if they aren’t planning on running in college and wanted to get one more race in? What if they didn’t even have the chance to race at NXR because their schedule conflicted with it, or simply Garmin RunningLane was a more convenient trip for the athlete or their team. Honestly, I don’t care what their reason could be, and neither should others. The only thing that we should care about is if the athletes are enjoying the sport and taking advantage of all of the opportunities that come their way.
Additionally, I think the series of tweets are in all honesty, incredibly disrespectful and ignorant. I can understand that someone may favor NXN more than another championship meet, but to go online and publicly discredit and criticize a meet that is doing nothing but giving athletes the chance to extend their season is a little much. But to call the meet the “manifestation of ‘everyone gets a trophy’ and implying that only the “rejects” of NXN go to RunningLane is ridiculous and the fact that it came from a coach made it even harder to read. Let me give a couple of examples that should hopefully help explain my point even further.
Back in 2016, Girard senior Cailie Logue was on a tear. She was undefeated, and had run 16:45 that season, along with four more trips under eighteen. She was already a ten-time state champion, and was the returning 3rd place finisher from NXN the year prior. In fact, she was the nation’s top returner, and was in contention to win it all. At NXR Heartland her senior year, Logue was within the top five runners the entire race, until she collapsed in the final 100m and was unable to get up and finish in a qualifying position. She would go on to finish 59th in 18:45. RunningLane wasn’t a thing in 2016, but if it were and she had decided to go compete there, would we have labeled Logue as someone who was chasing a participation trophy or talk smack that she was going to a meet that wasn’t NXN? If dealing in hypotheticals isn’t your thing, let’s look at something a little more recent.
You know the name Wyatt Haughton, state record holder, three-time state champion, a gutsy racer. Well, at the 2022 edition of NXR Heartland, Haughton ran 15:06.9, his fastest time of the season not under fifteen minutes. However, he unfortunately finished in 8th, just a few spots out of the final qualifying spot for NXN. Should we have made him end his season there? Should we have told him that it’s ‘Nike or bust’? I’m glad we didn’t, because last weekend, as you know, he was the runner-up in Huntsville and had another great race. Do you think he went down to RunningLane seeking out a participation trophy or a couple of pats on the back along with a “good race”? From how he performed and his post-race interview, I’d argue that his eyes were set on something bigger than a consolation prize.
I could even dive into the story of Payton Godsey, the RunningLane champ and the California state champion who was the second fastest girl in the state this season, but I think you get my point.
At the end of the day, I think we can all agree that both cross country and track & field already lack the respect and attention from those outside of the sport. Whether it be at the high school level, or even the professional level. The last thing this sport needs is hate and negativity from those heavily involved within the sport. If anything, we should all celebrate and build-up any and every opportunity that we have to improve and expand the sport, especially when it gives athletes opportunities that they may have not had before.
To every parent, coach, fan, spectator, administrator and everybody who played a part in this past cross country season, thank you. Without you, I wouldn’t have anything to write about, and these athletes wouldn’t have anything to do during the fall. I’m wishing the best to everybody heading into the holiday season. Whether that includes some time off, getting back into training, or maybe even some racing, I hope it goes exactly according to plan for each and every one of you.
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