Liberty Gets 6th and More Pandemonium in Sectional 4
Sectional 4 may have been the wildest race of the day on Saturday. With the individual races wrapped up before the gun even went off, we found out that no one was safe in Kansas City on the team side...not even one of the 5 or 6 best teams in the state. We lead off with one of the most shocking developments out of Sectional 4: Liberty boys took 6th.
We expected a tight race for the team victory between Blue Springs and Rockhurst in the boys race, but what we did not expect was an even tighter race for the two remaining qualifying spots. While Liberty, the runner up team at the humongous Chile Pepper Festival, seemed like a lock for a qualifying spot as a team, they were unable to get the job done, falling a mere 4 points short of a qualifying bid. In fact, they were not even 5th - they were 6th behind Lee's Summit North who missed out on qualifying by a sole point. In fact, the third place Park Hill South Panthers were only 2 points ahead of the 4th place Staley Falcons making the split between 3rd and 6th place a mere 6 points. To further complicate your ability to comprehend, the Central St. Joseph Indians who just upset Liberty in the District meet were nowhere to be found and only qualified Boston Small through to state. While all this mess was going on in the back end of the team race, Blue Springs and Rockhurst were busy with their own knock-down-drag-out, but this time, Rockhurst was able to come out on top. The Hawklets actually bested the Wildcats by 11 this time after a number of close races going either way over the past few weeks. Blue Springs, of course, was led by Victor Mugeche's 8th win in as many tries as he coasted to the 15:45 victory. Oaklee Hauschild, as he is wont to do, was just behind him in 2nd, but was 20 seconds back. The next two spots belonged to Rockhurst's duo of Tom Seitzer and Peter Campbell with Park Hill South frontman Eli Guzman taking 5th. Ryan Flood of Liberty was 6th.
It was more of the same in the girls race as heavy favorite Victoria Findley took home another convincing victory, going 17:59 to seal a 35 second victory over Park Hill South rising star Emma Roth. It was Findley's 7th win in as many tries and she will now set her sights on her first ever cross country state title after finishing 2nd last year. Her 17:59 comes at a great time as, if she is able to duplicate or improve upon that, she should be able to secure that elusive cross country title. Behind Roth was Blue Springs South senior Danielle Hotalling in 18:36. She continues to pick up steam as she looks for a top-5 finish in Class 4 this year. Staley's Alexandra Hamre had another huge race as she was able to finish ahead of Liberty phenom Madelynn Hill again who has notably not looked herself lately. The team race was slightly less insane in this one, but Park Hill South did provide an exclamation point with their 14 point victory over state title contender Blue Springs South. Their 19:37 average was 3 seconds slower than BSS's 19:34, but that was powered by two girls under 18:40. Liberty North and St. Teresa's Academy were the other two qualifying teams as, in another twisted turn of events, Blue Springs was left out of the qualifying spots as they actually finished in 6th behind Lee's Summit North. Blue Springs was ranked #1 earlier this year and now will not even be making the trip as they only qualified Tessa Valdivia and Elaina Hubner. The entire top 30 in this one was also under 20:20 and it will be interesting to see just how things shake out with Sectional 1 and Sectional 4, the two Sectionals on complete opposite sides of the state, clearly being the deepest Sectionals in the state on the girls side.