Ray-Pec Wins Epic Throwdown; Findley Wins Once Again
The KC Gold Division was one of the two most hotly contested meets in general this past week and the race on the girls side did not disappoint. According to our second installment of the subjective rankings, this race included four of the top five ranked girls teams in Class 4: Lee's Summit West (1), Blue Springs South (2), Blue Springs (3), and Raymore-Peculiar (5). This race showed why we called Class 5 girls a "toss-up" as it was Ray-Pec who came out on top. Ray-Pec started out the year ranked very high, but has taken a tumble as the back end of their varsity has not proven to be as strong as its front end just yet. They are the only team with two girls under 19:00 in Miranda Dick, who took 2nd individually, and Makenzie Stucker (fourth), but their 2:46 split on the day left slightly more to be desired from their 5. Regardless, the 4 point victory over Blue Springs South, 8 point victory over Lee's Summit West and 39 point victory over a Blue Springs squad that appears to be short a stud freshman at the moment showed that the Panthers mean business. It also showed that all four teams on the podium this November could be from KCMO. As we have alluded to before, this is a Kansas City state -- we non-KCMOers are just living in it.
The individual race was headlined by one Victoria Findley of Blue Springs South. Have you heard of her? Her 18:32 victory was one of her slowest times of the year so far, but it was her 5th time under 18:40...out of 5 tries. She is still undefeated and added this Conference title to her already sterling 2017 resume, which includes Greg Wilson, Forest Park, Chile Pepper, and Rim Rock victories. With a 27 second victory over Class 4 #3 Miranda Dick, Findley appears to be unbeatable in the West at the moment. Other notable finishes on the day included Danielle Hotalling's 19:01 for 3rd, Blue Springs #1 Tessa Valdivia in 5th in 19:20 and LSW's #1 (on this day) Addie Mathis, who's 6th place finish in 19:39.9 was just 6/10 of a second ahead of teammate and Class 4 #14 McKenna Butler.