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.