North Platte girls 3-peat as MSHSAA Class 2 state champions

Lindsay Ramsey had a weekend for the record books -- literally -- for North Platte.

The junior won a trio of state championships and broke a pair of records to help North Platte win the MSHSAA Class 2 State Championship on Saturday, May 18 in Jefferson City.


The championship was the third in a row for the program from Dearborn. The last Class 2 team to win three in a row was Hamilton-Penney in 2009, 2010 and 2011. However, the Hornets won five in a row during that stretch.

"It is tremendous when you look at it on paper going in," Coach Brendan Cary said. "This was kind of our down year and we graduated so many great athletes the last two years. Not that we didn't have athletes coming back, we knew it would be a different year. We started looking early, maybe things be spread enough that we would have a chance. We knew with Lindsay and the distance girls and score 71 and 86 points it is hard to wrap your head around and we will probably score 40 to 50. We think that is a possibility and that was early on. There were a lot of great athletes from a lot of great places that would spread points out more and our kids were spot on. It's a credit to culture and expectations. Show up and do your best and figure out what the rest is. Do your best and let God do the rest; if it shows up in another championship, great. If not, great. You did what you could do."


Ramsey accounted for 30 individual points and added some additional ones in a relay. The Panthers finished with 45, 10 points ahead of runner-up Jefferson (Festus).

She set meet records in the 200- and 400-meter dashes.


She ran 24.32 to win the 200, breaking the mark that Aiesha Irvin-Muhammad from St. Elizabeth Academy set in 2013. 

Ramsey broke a state record in the 400-meter with a time of 55.03, easily besting the 2021 mark by Cheyenne Melvin from STEAM Academy.

Ramsey won the 100-meter dash in 11.88 seconds to start her day out on Saturday. It was the fifth time in the past 10 years, the Panthers had the fastest 100-meter runner. 


She tied the school record in the 100, broke the 400 record twice -- prelims and finals -- and 200. It was also the best mark ever of any school in the KCI Conference. 

"I don't know what else to say about her," Cary said. "She's an all-star in three different sports and I don't know we had that before at North Platte."


The day ended for her with a third-place finish in the 4x400-meter relay.

She ran the final leg of the 4x400-meter relay in the final race of the day, taking third place in 4:10.11. Graci Williams, Morgan Ball and Kylee Sipes were the other members of the team


The Panthers also got nine points from distance runner Chloe Heckman. The sophomore was fourth in the 3,200-meter (11:55.35) and fifth in the 1,600-meter (5:21.87).


North Platte just missed points in the 4x800-meter relay, taking ninth.