West Plains Wins 14th; Norris, Driemeier Dominate Class 4

The two final races of the day last Saturday were headlined, on both sides, by two of the state's most historic cross country programs.

In the Class 4 State Championships girls race, there was a clear and heavy favorite. Harrisonville's Kayleigh Norris was going for her second straight state championship with really only one question on fans' minds: How much will the margin of victory be?

The rain-soaked Gans Creek course had only gotten worse as the high noon race began. Cones lined several spots along the path, cutting off inside tracks and forcing athletes to swing wide around parts of the course that had beaten into oblivion. Most, if not all, of the field were probably going to see more than 3.11 miles on their Stravas on this day. 

Norris made her presence felt immediately as she powered to the front off the start and into a commanding lead right away. As she turned toward the 1K split and back into the view of all of the spectators lining the course, she had already opened up an 8-second lead on the rest of the field. The chase group was led by West Plains senior Addison Sanders and MICDS senior Grace Coppel, and included 8 other of the state's best Class 4 runners. 

Movement abound had taken place as the girls passed the finish line and headed back down the first straightaway. Washington freshman Grace Owenby had moved all the way up to 2nd from 9th, leading 4 new girls into the top 5. West Plains held an 11 point lead over Festus, but Festus had subtracted 27 points just on that section of the course and were running strong. Led by Lucy Boyer's 6-spot improvement, the Tigers were lurking close behind the Zizzers. The one thing that had stayed constant throughout all of these changes was Norris's lead, though it had grown from 8 seconds to 21 seconds with no signs of slowing. 

At the 3K mark, Norris's lead was up to 39 seconds, but now it was over Nerinx Hall's Sydney Krus. Owenby had moved back to 5th behind Caterina Rossomanno in 3rd and Gabrielle Moresi in 4th. Festus had now moved into the team lead with West Plains now 1 point behind. The key had been the continued upward movement of Katelyn Thurman and Kendall Counts, who were in all-state positions along with Olivia Cole. Four Tigers in the top 26 were running confidently and trending ever closer to the Class 4 team title, but West Plains was not out of it yet.

Over the penultimate kilometer, both Norris and the Festus Tigers would blow the race open. More upward movement from Boyer, Thurman, Cole, and No. 5 runner Alyssa Collins had helped them build a 10-point gap on West Plains heading into the final stretch of the race. Rossomanno and Moresi, the champions in Districts 2 and 3, respectively, had moved into 2nd and 3rd. Moresi, along with Penelope Hinkle and Danielle Burk and pushed Parkway Central to within 2 points of West Plains and 12 of Festus, putting a major upset effort potentially on the table. 

Unfortunately for Parkway Central, though, the upset effort would belong instead to Festus. Behind West Plains by a significant margin heading into the meet, the Tigers powered their way to their first championship since 2017 and third in school history. In typical Festus fashion, they saved their best race for last. 

The West Plains (in red and white) and Boliver (blue and yellow) Girls race down the starting stretch

West Plains would finish second, marking two historic cross country schools in the top two in the Class 4 race. Their 91 points were just 10 behind the Tigers and 12 ahead of Parkway Central. A late race push by the Zizzers proved to be not enough to overcome their deficit, but they still added team trophy number 27 to the cabinet in their 44th trip to the state meet. Central's 3rd place finish would prove to be their first team trophy in school history, surprisingly enough. In 4th was a Bolivar team that made a decisive leap in the 4th kilometer, jumping up 2 spots from 6th. The District 2 runner-ups picked up their first team trophy since their Class 3 victory in 2018. 

Kayleigh Norris points at the painted MSHSAA logo on the course homestretch 30 meters from the finish line, as if to say, "Not this time, I'm staying away from you!" Norris collapsed as she reached the logo last year before getting to her feet and jogging to victory in the Class 4 state race, but it cost her a shot at a sub-18-minute performance. This year, the weather and course conditions did that. 

The individual race belonged to none other than Harrisonville's Kayleigh Norris. The most decisive victory of the weekend, Norris crossed the line a whopping 58 seconds before runner-up Gabrielle Moresi in 18:29.30, the fastest girls time of the day by 17 seconds. Moresi's final kilometer was reminiscent of the major victories in her season - calm, cool, collected, and confident.


For Norris, though, it was a historic finish to an incredible career, and we can only imagine how fast it would have been in better conditions.

With hardly a bead of sweat to be seen, Norris said after the race, "(I feel) pretty good actually. The whole time I felt pretty smooth despite the mud." 

With one final major push to the finish, after placing 5th at the District 1 meet, Lucy Boyer came across in 3rd at the state meet in 19:36.30. The sophomore was 31st in 2023, but left no doubt about whether or not she would be earning a medal this time around.

Boyer told MileSplit, "I just had a vision of us winning (as a team) and that makes me run faster. ...When I was up there, I knew I could at least get top ten, and I felt good today so I just wanted to push to see how high I could (go)."

Rounding out the top 5 were freshmen Grace Owenby and senior Caterina Rossomanno, a massive bounce-back for Rossomanno after a disappointing end to her junior season. Addison Sanders was the top Zizzer across the line with her 6th place finish and Nerinx sophomore Sydney Krus nearly willed her squad across the line with her 7th place finish. 

Below, left to right, Sanders, Applegate, and Krus.

Other notable performances: MICDS freshman Elise Tourais had a stellar finish to her first campaign with a 9th place overall finish, one week after a 7th place finish in District 1. She ran her two fastest times of her career in her final two races of the season, 19:52.00 and 20:10.70. She was also right behind teammate Frances Applegate who is now 2-for-2 on cross country top 10 finishes. Bolivar was led by junior Emma Howes in 14th, but a huge key to their team trophy finish was freshman Michaela Young. Young improved from 23rd at the District 2 meet to 21st at the State meet in 20:30.60. Nerinx Hall's Grace Murphy had the biggest jump of the day as she went from 127th in 2023 (22:16.00) to 24th in 2024 (20:31.50). She ran a personal best of 19:04.00 a year after running under 22:00 only once.  

Parkway Central