Connor Burns put together one of the most dominating wins in MSHSAA Class 3 XC history when he won the cross country title last month.
Columbia Parks and Recreation's Matt Boehner had to stay attentive and keep the lead vehicle's pedal close to the floor to keep sub-4-minute miler Connor Burns of Southern Boone County from catching him. Burns battled 20+ mile-per-hour winds to still finish in 15:01 to win the Class 3 state title by 61-seconds. The performance likely would have been good enough for a 14:40-something clocking in limited wind conditions.
Burns ran the 5K course at Gans Creek in 15:01.2 and had a winning margin of 1:01.2 - the largest Class 3 margin dating back to 2000 - the latest year MSHSAA has online records.
It is the largest margin of win in Class 3 since before 2009, when Harrisonville's Maksim Korolev won the title with a 50-second margin.
Burns dominated the course on Nov. 5 and cruised to a second straight title. The weekend started with the idea of Burns maybe breaking the state record, but windy, cold, muddy conditions ended that chance.
In front of a lot of bundled up and amazed spectators, Connor Burns celebrates down the homestretch before crossing the finish in 15:01.3 to win and run the 4th-fastest time on the course to give him two of the top 4 performances on the 4-season-old Gans Creek Cross Country Course.
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It essentially became a battle for second place.
Bowling Green junior Ben Chance took home that honors with a time of 16:02.4, about nine seconds faster than East Newton junior Chase Sorrell.
Bowling Green junior Ben Chance races to a runner-up finish in Class 3 in 16:02 to help the Bobcats to a 6th-place team finish for his dad and coach, Matt.
The top 17 runners all finished the course in under 17 minutes.
John Burroughs and Herculaneum each had two runners in the top 10. For the Bombers from Burroughs, sophomore Charles Glatz took fifth and junior Ted Spetnagel was seventh.
John Burroughs' Charles Glatz (right #1135), Ted Spetnagel (left #1138) and Buffalo High School 's Sean Walker (middle #1044) push to crest a hill a mile into the Class 3 race. The trio placed 5th, 7th, and 13th, as Glatz and Spetnagel led the Bombers to the 3rd-place team trophy.
From Herculaneum, senior Keith Vance was eighth, ahead of teammate Sam Vaughn, who was ninth.
At the mile, Herculaneum had three runners in the top 10 and at the finish 3 in the top 17, with Keith Vance (left #1127), Sam Vaughn (right #1128), and Nathaniel Wright (back right), taking 8th, 9th, and 17th to lead the Blackcats to the runner-up team trophy.
St. Charles West's James Wortham was fourth, Quentin Hermann from Father Tolton Catholic was sixth and the top 10 was rounded out by Eldon's Nathan Reynolds.
Tolton Catholic senior Quentin Hermann crosses the finish line in 6th-place to lead the Trailblazers to the Class 3 state title. Hermann transferred to the school from Columbia Independent School before his junior year.
Tolton won the state title for the second time in three years and doing so in a new class - after winning the Class 2 title in 2020. Moving up a class last year due to the championship factor, the Trailblazers were fourth in Class 3.
2021 Class 3 state champion Herculaneum and 2020 Class 2 state champion Father Tolton Catholic battled it out for the 2022 Class 3 state title over every inch of the Gans Creek 5,000-meter course.
This year, they posted a five-point win over Herculaneum, the 2021 Class 3 champs.
Owen Hartline took 18th for Tolton to earn another all-state medal for the school that sits across the street from the Gans Creek course.
For the defending state champions, Herky finished with three all-staters. Nathaniel Wright, a sophomore, was 17th overall. The trophy was the 27th overall for the Blackcats.
John Burroughs was five points back of Herculaneum with 116 points. The Bombers also had three all-staters thanks to senior William Shearburn placed 15th. The trophy was the sixth overall for the Bombers.
St. Michael the Archangel was fourth overall, bringing home the school's first trophy.
Sam Rosenberg was 11th overall, while Johnny Joyce took 25th and secured the final spot on the podium. The junior made a late dash to preserve that medal after sitting in 25th place at the 4k checkpoint.
"It's been great, we knew this group had a lot of potential but they went way above our expectations," St. Michael coach Vince Fitzgerald said. "The program has come a long way since we opened the school six years ago. We want to keep it going."
The top 25 featured two ninth graders to earn all-state honors: Chillicothe's Luke Thompson was 14th and Southern Boone County's Brian Burns was 21st.