The 4th edition of the Gans Creek Classic marked the 3rd anniversary of the world class Gans Creek Cross Country Course's opening. The meet also marked the anniversary of the Greg Hall Champions Plaza dedication, where awards were handed out for the second straight year. Weather conditions were good as Fall had officially arrived, bringing with it more autumn like temperatures. Rain on Friday afternoon made for some sloppy conditions as some of the flat portions of the course were thoroughly soaked.
The course path and its mixture of grasses continue to thicken up while the native Missouri grasses and plants have grown in to decorate the landscape and provide a natural and pretty backdrop for competition.
The meet marked competition week #4 for some and #5 for others, serving as a marker of progress and possibility, with just 5 weeks until Districts and 6 weeks until state. The top-2 teams in each race earned trophies as did the top-25 individuals in each race.
Varsity Girls White
The Varsity Girls White Division race kicked off the meet, the first of six varsity races and 10 total races on the day. One-hundred and sixty-five ladies toed the line for the 8:00 a.m. race. The ladies shoes and socks soaked up much of the morning dew, taking away extra weight and making quicker the trip around the 2k and 3k loops for the young women and men that followed.
Elsa Henry (right) and Jozelynn Bostick (center) lead the Varsity White race while California's Kenzleigh Goans follows, 1150-meters into the 5k.
Centralia senior Jozelynn Bostick and St. Michael the Archangel junior Elsa Henry led early, while California's Kenzleigh Goans made it a battle of three in the second kilometer. But Henry kept the pedal down in the third kilometer and ran away from the field, earning the win. Henry lifted her arms in celebration as she crossed the finish in 18:55 to win by 56-seconds. Henry ran her first and final kilometers in 3:40.
St. Michael the Archangel's Elsa Henry cruises to victory, winning the race in 18:55.
Goans took 2nd for the California Pintos, finishing in 19:52, while Bostick finished 3rd in 20:04 to lead the Centralia Panthers to 2nd-place in the team standings. Jozelynn Bostick's teammate, freshman Kenedee Moss was 4th in 21:02, ahead of Paige Franks of Fort Osage and Julia Pattison of West Platte. Mansfield's Logan Jones edged Pleasant Hill's Brooke Beck for 7th, both in 2:16, while Lafayette County's Cadynce Shipman and Palmyra's Alyssa Noland rounded out the top-10.
Winner Henry competes for St. Michael the Archangel, a school that opened in Lee's Summit, merging Archbishop O' Hara and St. Mary's. While one Lee's Summit school had the individual winner, another Lee's Summit school claimed the team title. Summit Christian Academy totaled 65-points, the same as Centralia, but won the tiebreaker with a sixth runner placing 33rd while Centralia's placed 81st.
Summit Christian Academy's Adriana McGregor (#1345), Marina Parks (#1347), and McKinzie Parks (back), and their teammates captured the Varsity Girls White Division title in a tiebreaker over Centralia.
Lexington was 3rd with 101 points while Monett edged Blair Oaks for 4th, 185-points to 186, while Maryville was 6th with 201, in a field of 16 scoring teams.