State Weekend is here! After an eventful weekend of District races, we are ready to crown 10 State Champions across the 5 classes. But first, it's time to vote for which boy you think had the best performance of the 2024 season.
All year long, you have been voting on who had the best performance each week. Now that we are at the end of the season, we have collected the winners from each poll and pushed them into one, final poll to determine who had the top performance of the season.
This week, polling starts on Monday, Nov. 4th at 8 a.m. and ends on Thursday at 10 p.m.
Here are the nominees!
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Thomas Garrett - Park Hill South
The Park Hill South junior held off a cavalcade of who's-who returners from the KCMO area, running 15:37.10 to win the highly competitive Tim Nixon Invitational. He was already 3 seconds ahead of where he finished the 2023 season, when he was 20th at the Class 5 State Championships.
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Brendan Alfonso - Parkway Central
We saw two strong performances from Alfonso that week: a 9:48.60 2 mile for 4th at the Fleet Feet Classic and a 16:04.06 5K at the Parkway Quad on his tough home course. He's part of a scary top 3 for the Colts.
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Lichte had a massive race at the Forest Park Festival, picking up his 3rd win of the young season with a 58 second victory over his teammate in the White Division. His 16:10.90 mark was a 5 second personal best for the junior who finished 14th in Class 3 last season.
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Ayden Taylor - Liberty Wentzville
Taylor threw down a massive personal best and new MO No. 1 15:04.76 for the win at the Missouri Southern Stampede on Saturday. He won the Green Division by 14 seconds.
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McGovern had a massive day for the Hawklets at the Gans Creek Classic Elite Twilight race, becoming the first freshman to break 16:00 this season when he shattered the barrier with his 15:36.10 personal best. After this race, he was 30 seconds ahead of the next fastest 9th grader in the entire state.
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Deleeuw was the second Missourian across the line at the KC XC Classic, behind only MO No. 1 Henry Acorn. He ran his fifth mark under 15:42 up to that point.
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It was a big day at the Patriot/Statesmen Classic for Uding as he followed up his 15:46.40 personal best from the Chile Pepper Festival with a 15:56.90, besting two ranked Webster Groves runners and finishing 2nd overall in the race to his A-list teammate Carson Driemeier.
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Tindall won the first ever COC West Championship with his 15:52.38, the second sub-16 mark of his season so far. He's trending toward the 15:29.60 which earned him 9th at last year's Class 5 State Championships.
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Michael Kershaw - Northwest Cedar Hill
Kershaw picked up the win on his home course, running a personal best 16:12.10 at the Northwest Last Chance.