For any high school cross country runner, the one race you spend your season preparing for is your state championships meet. Last weekend on November 3rd and 4th, the Missouri State Meet was held at the Gans Creek 5k cross-country course in Columbia, Missouri. There were lots of great performances individually and team-wise, and I will be talking about all ten races across three parts (all are out now), boys and girls, classes one through five, and I will break down each race, also stay tuned for the final Kewpie Kooldown of the season, in part three. 

In this part I will talk about the races on Friday, November 3rd. On Friday there was four races across class one and two, boys and girls. The first race I will talk about is the class one boys. 

Class One

In this race, the race up front was between two seniors, Riley Blay, the reigning state champion of West Nodaway High School, and Landon Duchscherer, of Marion C. Early High School. The two battled it out up until the final kilometers when Blay pulled ahead by one second, following that he lengthened his lead to win by seven seconds, in 15:48.

On the team side, Hermitage High School, from Hermitage, Missouri brought home the title as they beat Van Buren High School by 26 points, with a score of 74. This was the same result from last year's championships. 

Following the class one boys race, there was the class one girls race. Unlike the boy's race, this one was a one-girl race. Mya Wray, senior from South Nodaway High School, the reigning third-place finisher ran away with the title. Early on this was made apparent as within the first kilometer she already had a lead of almost four seconds. Within the rest of the race she continued to lead the race, and continued to lengthen her lead until she eventually won by one minute and three seconds in a time of 19:11.

In the team race, Chadwick High School from Chadwick, Missouri won by 23 points, beating Liberal High School with a score of 74. 

Class Two

The last two races of the day were the class two races. In the first one, the boy's race, it was once again a tale of one runner. In this case, it was senior Reed Layton from Woodland High School. Through the first few kilometers this race looked like it could be a battle for the win, but at the third kilometer split Layton took the lead by five seconds and never looked back as he lengthened his lead and he ended up winning by 11 seconds in 16:25. 

The team title was won in this race by Woodland High School, from Marble Hill, Missouri. They beat Lutheran High School from Kansas City by 41 points with a score of 96. 

In the girl's race, the race up front was between just a few runners. Very early on it appeared that it would be between the three sophomores, Kensington Curd, fourth-place finisher last year, from Brentwood High School, Chloe Heckman of North Platte High School, and Emerson Selsor of Jefferson High School in Festus, Missouri. Over the course of the race, these three stayed together and the spread between the three was only 11 seconds, as Curd won the title in 19:24.

In the team battle, Lafayette County High School from Higginsville, Missouri won, as they beat Woodland High School by 28 points. 

Across all ten races, every athlete performed well and this whole season has been great to watch. It will be interesting to see how the top performers perform next year and in this upcoming track season. Stay tuned for more on that.