Easton Sabala Makes It Four Top Seven All-States in Cross Country, Wins First Individual Gold
For the 4th straight year, Hermitage senior Easton Sabala was on the awards stand at Oak Hills, but this time, he was atop it.
The favorite headed into the Class 1 boys race, Sabala had some company through the first mile as Weaubleau junior Chase Ratliff, Chadwick junior Evan Smith, and West Platte senior Max Davies were all setting the tone up front with Sabala as they came through in 5:01.
While Sabala had rolled through with a group at the mile, he had pulled away 800 meters later and was all alone at the 2 mile mark. He had built up an 8 second lead on the field at that point and never looked back. A group of three juniors were close behind, though, as Davies, Ratliff, and Smith were all tracking as they got closer to Firehouse Hill.
Sabala would cruise home to the victory, though, as his 16:43.33 gave him his 4th top 7 finish at the state meet and sneaked him into the top 10 Class 1 times of all-time, pushing out Riley Gorham's 16:43.37 by a nose. We caught up with Sabala after his championship run:
Ratliff would come across 2nd in a battle to the finish with Davies as the boys were 16:52.20 and 16:52.26 respectively. For both boys, it was their first time in the top 5, but Ratliff was 7th last year as Davies was 10th. Both boys, combined with the 4th place finish from Jesse Schultz - another junior - will be duking it out in western MO for Class 1 superiority in 2018.
We spoke with Ratliff after his runner-up finish: