WEEK IN REVIEW
Here I will give a somewhat brief recap of some top team and individual performances from the first exciting week of racing in Kansas! I will obviously only be able to include in the recap races for which I or ks.milesplit has received, so my apologies if some spectacular races are left out. I can think of a handful of meets right off the top of my head, including one which has some top-25 ranked teams and individuals, for which I have not received results. I have sent out a few e-mails, but if anyone has more connections than me (i.e., all coaches, among others) and is able to obtain meet results for the following meets, we would appreciate them being sent to us!
September 3:
Abilene Invitational
Concordia Invitational
Goodland Invitational
Mission Valley Invitational
Tescott Invitational
September 5:
Wichita County Invitational
Manhattan Invitational
Marysville Invitational
Thomas More Prep Invitational
Topeka-Hayden Invitational
Without further delay, here is the week in review!
GIRLS
Since basically every team runs every week of the year, it is exciting to see how the rankings develop/change each week, with the possibility of frequent and large changes throughout the season. As far as I could tell, on the girls' side, there was only one large team surprise -- Blue Valley North. At the Olathe East Invitational on Thursday, each class was separated into races, and in the freshman race, BVN had 14:57, 15:00, and 15:41 4k finishes. Add that to sophomore Sophie Scott (ranked #13 overall this week) and a solid #5, and they are instantly in contention for a podium finish at the 6A State meet. Other top-10 changes were Lawrence Free State moving up from 5th to 3rd on the strength of performances from freshmen as well at Olathe East and #2-ranked Emily Venters (14:04 4k). Pre-season #2 Olathe East and #8 St. James Academy were also at the loaded 4-team meet, and did not disappoint, with many fast times. St. James Academy got "last" in team scores by combining all four grades, but was missing a top-3 runner and still had an impressive showing.
Another meet with many top teams was the Greg Wilson Classic at Johnson County Community College, hosted by St. Thomas Aquinas. Their girls won the meet in convincing fashion, with three in the top five and a team score of 32. Pre-season #s 3 (SM West) and 4 (SM Northwest) were also present. Northwest arguably did not have every top runner in the varsity race but placed 6th ahead of SM West in 7th. The team that looked quite solid here was #16 Shawnee Mission North, who beat both of these teams to place 3rd with 100 points, just behind Missouri's Park Hill South, and they will move up a bit in the rankings this week.
Two Wichita-area meets shook up the team rankings a bit as well -- the J.K. Gold Classic and the Bishop Carroll Invitational. #7 Maize South was the top-ranked area team heading in and will remain as such after their victory at the J.K. Gold Classic. The victory, however, was a somewhat narrow 56-64 win over #17 Blue Valley West, which had a good showing and will move up. Third place was top-ranked 4A team Trinity Academy with 81 points. #15 Wichita East (8th) and #18 Andover (6th) were also present, though not much of a factor in the team race. Andover Central beat both of them to place fourth with 98 points and will likely be ranked near or ahead of them for the coming week. The Bishop Carroll Invitational saw a bit of an "upset" in the team race, with #20 Blue Valley Southwest passing not only #12 Wichita North (2nd place) but also the host #9 Bishop Carroll girls (3rd) to win easily with 30 points. North was a somewhat distant second with 66 points, while Carroll was not too far behind with 80.
Individually, 21 of the pre-season ranked top-25 will stay ranked, though many of the numbers changed. #1 Cailie Logue of Girard took the easy victory at Labette County over #13 Cassidy Westhoff of Fort Scott, 18:28 to 18:59, both of which are the #1 and #4 times of the weekend, respectively. #2 Emily Venters of Free State won the junior girls' race in an impressive 4k time of 14:04 at Olathe East, while #7 Kayla Davis of Olathe East ran the 2nd-fastest time of the day (14:28) in winning the senior girls' race ahead of #23 Judi Jones (St. James Academy), who ran a 15:11. #6 Kiran Cordes (Free State) ran a 15:03 for 3rd in the junior girls' race, while St. James Academy's Gabrielle Boucher ran a solid 14:42 for 2nd. #17 Sophie Scott won the sophomore girls' race in 14:54. A couple other impressive results at Olathe East were the emergence of Blue Valley North freshmen Lily Strauss and Anna Martin, who went 1-2 in their race with times of 14:57 and 15:00. #3 Cameron Gueldner won the 3200 meter race at the Shawnee Mission South Quad in 12:32 by over 30 seconds. At Greg Wilson, #4 Molly Born (SM Northwest) won the showdown between her and #5 Margaret Pigott (St. Thomas Aquinas) 18:45 to 19:00, while Pigott's freshman teammate Olivia Sovereign placed just ahead of her in 18:57. #10 Olivia Rode of Aquinas placed fifth in 19:45, while #20 Samantha Taylor (SM North) ran a 20:00 to place 6th. The J.K. Gold Classic saw #15 Destini Eskridge dominate the race with a 19:01 5k. #11 Kelsi Andrews of Kapaun Mt. Carmel got the better of #8 Carly Flake of Andover in what will probably the first of many close showdowns this season, running 19:49 to Flake's 19:54. Finally, #18 Gabriela Reyna of Wichita North won the Bishop Carroll Invitation by 28 seconds with a time of 19:47.
BOYS
Six of the ten boys' teams took victories, and another took second to a team ahead of them. #1 St. Thomas Aquinas took a win at their home Greg Wilson Classic, placing six in the top 18, though the margin of victory was not as large as for their girls. Although it was still a clear win with 39 points, it was only by 22 points, as #14 Shawnee Mission North was impressive and capitalized off of three top-seven finishers and scored 61 points for second. #12 Shawnee Mission East did not field a varsity team there, so we shall have to wait to see how they look next week, but #19 Olathe North had a good showing, placing 5th as the third Kansas team.
The Olathe East Invitational for the boys didn't feature four top-8 teams like in the girls' race, but it was still a high-quality meet. Though the runners were separated into their respective races, combined results show Olathe East winning easily with 25 points and with eight runners ranging from 12:24-13:06 for 4k (on pace for 15:30-16:22 5k). The race for second was somewhat close. It wasn't #21 St. James Academy or #24 Blue Valley North in second, though -- it was Lawrence Free State, which would have scored 62 points in a combined race, followed by Blue Valley North with 67 and St. James Academy with 77.
The J.K. Gold Classic saw four ranked teams in action. This meet is the cause what will probably be the second-biggest jump in rankings (only behind Shawnee Mission North); #13 Maize South won the meet pretty convincingly with 53 points, 24 ahead of #16 Blue Valley West. Campus, which was a "bubble" team when I was putting together rankings last week, was third, while #6 Andover struggled a bit without a few key runners from last year and placed fourth.
Not far away from that meet, the Bishop Carroll Invitational had three ranked boys' teams running. It was a battle between #7 Bishop Carroll and #8 Blue Valley Southwest for the title; Blue Valley Southwest looked strong through three runners, all of whom placed in the top seven (compared to Carroll's one in the top seven), but BC's depth won out to take the narrow victory, 51-59. #23 Wichita North had a strong front two runners, but was overtaken by both Maize, 3rd place with 79 points, and Dodge City, 4th with 100.
Some other top-25 teams in action: #3 Olathe South took the tiebreaker over #10 Mill Valley at the Shawnee Mission East Quad; but Mill Valley was without #1 runner Derek Meeks, who ran at Bishop Carroll instead. #4 Baldwin won easily at Anderson County with 27 points, and #9 Garden City won out in Great Bend.
Now for the individuals. The #1 and #2 ranked runners either did not run or we do not have results for them, but behind them, there were four victories, the highest ranked one being #5 Nicholas Skinner of Olathe East. He ran a 12:24 4k at the Olathe East meet for the fastest time of the day by six seconds, ahead of #7 Ethan Donley of Free State. #14 Marcus Tula of Garden City took the win (16:44) over teammate #15 Erik Chaparro by 14 seconds out in the heat of Western Kansas, in Great Bend, and over Great Bend's #8 Kerby Depenbusch, who reportedly has been dealing with breathing issues and is not in as good shape as he could be as a result. #16 Isaac Castro of Hugoton won in Meade with a time of 17:38, 20 seconds ahead of #23 Frank Cuevas of Kiowa County. And then, #18 Matthew Wilson of Kapaun Mt. Carmel took the win at the J.K. Gold Classic with a time of 16:39, 9 seconds ahead of #21 Alex Moen of Andover.
Greg Wilson Classic produced some impressive individual results which will cause a few new names to appear in this week's rankings. Most notably, Shawnee Mission North's Belesti Akalu ran the first sub-16:00 time of the year in his 15:55 win at the Greg Wilson Classic, ahead of six pre-season ranked runners, including #4 Michael Shanahan of Aquinas, who placed second in 16:05. #24 Will Cole, Shanahan's teammate, placed third in 16:20, followed by Alex Akalu of SM North in 5th with a time of 16:26. Also of SM North, Noah Stevenson placed 7th in 16:51, followed by #12 Daniel Petracek of Aquinas, 9th in 16:57. Patracek was closely followed by teammate Alex Gill, who was 11th in 17:02.
Although it is tough to gauge the results in terms of comparing to other runners due to the distance, the 4k races at Olathe East's meet produced some fast times. Just behind aforementioned #7 Donley was his Free State teammate, Tanner Hockenbury, with a time of 12:33, and Olathe East's Anders Hanson, who held off Hockenbury at the line. Also, sophomore Ben Kahnk of Olathe East won his race in a quick 12:34.
A couple other notable victories were: Dylan Miller of Blue Valley Southwest had a big win at Bishop Carroll, running a 16:58 to beat out #11 Derek Meeks of Mill Valley and #3 Paul Becker of Bishop Carroll by six and ten seconds, respectively. Also, Dylan Brenneman of Spring Hill established himself as an early-season top 4A runner by winning at the Jerry Howarter Invite, beating out #25 Baldwin's George Letner 16:49 to 17:10.