Like the girls race, the Class 4 boys race feature a heavy favorite well ahead of a crowded field of chase pack runners. Festus's Carson Driemeier came into the final race of the day with a 15:05.90 personal best from the Chile Pepper Festival and four 2024 victories to his name, three of which coming in his most recent three races. He had run under 16:00 all but once and was 27 seconds ahead of his next closest competitor. The junior with one state gold to his name already (2024 Class 4 3200) was en route to another golden feather in his cap.
Also like the girls race, the dream of running a personal best on this course fell far by the wayside. At this point in the day, the Gans Creek course was unrecognizable in some spots and borderline hazardous. The one sharp turn on the course to begin the 3K loop had taken at least as many ankles as the St. Charles West ladies' point total from the earlier Class 3 race. Cones continued to go wider to push athletes further away from the inside tracks in several spots. Two meet officials had stationed themselves 10 meters out from the finish line, standing in the middle of the course and loudly directing the exhausted athletes to the left and right of them, away from the worst part of the finish line. Athletes who had opted for flats instead of spikes were skating into the finish corral as they attempted to finish or finding themselves facedown in the muddy mess. A zamboni-like roller was being used excessively while runners traversed the course to clear out the standing water and mud that had accumulated just behind the finishing mats. This writer could hardly feel his cold, soaking wet feet.
Nonetheless, cross country, in the end, is about the indomitable spirit of the race. No matter the precipitation, no matter the temperature, with steep uphills, sharp turns off downhills, uneven footing, gravel portions, asphalt crossings, creek crossings, it does not matter to the elite cross country runner. They step to the line and meet the challenge regardless. This day would be a true test of this spirit of fire and fight that each cross country carries with them to the line each time.
Drieimeier led the way early as he was wont to do. But unlike the Class 4 female competitors, the men would not let him get out and feel comfortable as the ladies had done with Norris. The Festus junior was accompanied by Smithville's Liam Adair and Lincoln College Prep's Aidan Kemnitzer in 3:01-3:02. The Lincoln boys had flown out of the gates hard with three boys in the top eight and a score of 109, good enough for first through the first kilometer.
Kemnitzer would not let Driemeier get out to the early lead as he was the only one who appeared bold enough to stick with him all the way through to the 2K mark mats. Adair had fallen back to third in 6:15, two seconds off the two leaders. Festus two-man Tate Uding had jumped up to 4th and Lincoln two-man Roman Garcia had stepped back to 5th. West Plains was in the lead now with 103 points, jumping up from 2nd. Festus moved up from 3rd and into 2nd, with Lincoln now in 3rd, and our pre-race pick Webster Groves sitting 4th. As the boys rounded the sharp turn, minding their footing all the way around and navigating fallers, it appeared to be anyone's race both individually and in the team race. The tight individual race would not survive the 3rd kilometer, though.
Driemeier began to open his lead as they all raced down the long straightaway. As the boys made the turn toward the muddiest part of the course and crossed the halfway point, Driemeier picked up the pace and nobody was able to cover it. After he hit the mats and recorded his 3K split of 9:32, Adair would be the next one to cross 6 seconds later. Driemeier was pressing and opening up an even bigger lead with each passing step. On the team side, Webster Groves was beginning to press, as well, and had moved themselves into 2nd with a 30 point improvement. West Plains still held on to the top spot with 98 points to their credit and an incredible rope-length 14-second spread from their first to fifth scorers.
The lead had extended to 14 seconds for Driemeier as he passed under the 4K split tower and headed into the home stretch of the course. The race within the race was heating up behind him, though, as the margin for the team title was now 2 points. West Plains was still in first, but Webster Groves's typical 3rd man, Drew Upperman, was carrying the torch for the Statesmen and had moved into 3rd with his teammate Corbin Cole sitting 5th. Uding was sandwiched in between the Webster men in 4th and Parkway Central's Alexander Moresi had moved into 6th. Festus was 3rd with 122 points, 20 back of Webster, but 31 ahead of Lincoln College Prep in 4th. Parkway Central was trending very well and had moved to within 2 points of a trophy spot. They had shed 22 points in the last 2 kilometers, led by Moresi, Lucas Amador in 18th, and Brendan Alfonso in 22nd. The heat was on heading into the final section of the course and the ballgame was anyone's.
The individual title, though, had been decided long ago as Carson Driemeier crossed the line in first, the first Festus Tiger to do so since Max McDaniel won the Class 3 race at Oak Hills in 2018. His 15:59.50 was one of only two marks under 16:00 on the day and ended up 10 seconds ahead of a surging runner-up Liam Adair.
"(Winning state) feels great. I really wish we could have gotten it for our team...those boys ran great and I love every single one of them."
Adair fought his way back from more than one injury to climb back to the top of the Class 4 ranks. After finishing 5th as a junior and running a personal best of 15:18.00 earlier in the 2023 season, the Northwest Missouri State commit had re-ascended the mountain top.
"I feel very accomplished. My best finish at state ever and I've been coming back from a lot...and I'm just feeling very accomplished...I can't complain, runner-up is not bad. I will say: I definitely ran over a 5K (today)."
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Class 4 Results | All Class 4 Interviews | 2024 State Preview and Crystal Ball Predictions | Photo Album COMING SOON
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With a 3:05 final kilometer, Uding would finish 3rd in 16:21.1, nearly fulfilling the Festus 1-2 prophecy that had been foretold in Kyle's Crystal Ball predictions. Moresi crossed the line 4th in 16:25.80, moving up another 2 places to the finsh, and the Webster duo of Cole and Upperman finished 5th and 6th, respectively. De Smet's Will Poelker was 7th and two Platte County boys came in 8th and 9th: Tanner Jenks and Blake Herron. John Burroughs' Charles Glatz rounded out the top 10 with a 16:40.90 mark. 
As for the team race, the West Plains Zizzers would cap off the victory by dropping 9 more points in the final kilometer and finishing with 91 points overall. For the historic program from south-central Missouri, it was their 14th state championship and first since 2008. In their 47th straight trip to the big dance, they had broken the tie with Herculaneum and are now in sole possession of the most state championships in state history.
MileSplit's Chris Auckley caught up with head coach Alicia Gunter a few days after the race.
"They really never had a bad race this season. They always were consistent, and they had a tight spread between one through five and even one through seven, and I knew that they would run well, but I also knew that they might hit a home run and still come up second. And I didn't want that for them. I wanted them to have the experience of being state champions, because they really have put in the work. And so, I'm just so happy for them when it was all said and done."
The story for the Zizzers was their pack-running prowess. Few teams have truly mastered the art of pack-running at the high school level like the 2024 West Plains boys did. Their 18.2 second 1-5 split predicated the spirit of their team-focused culture. The "run faster alone, but farther together" mentality that so many coaches try and try and try to instill in their athletes. These boys, led by Kyler Gunter and Carson King, used that team focus to power themselves to a Class 4 victory, another stamp on an already decorated legacy of cross country success. Gunter finished 13th, with King in 16th, three-man Hunter Stanley in 22nd, Joseph Roberson in 23rd, and Trevin Smith in 26th. The top 5 had earned individual all-state honors, but not a single one had found themselves in the top 10. Once again, a masterclass in team-focused racing on full display for everyone in attendance or watching the live stream.
(left to right) Parkway Central's Lucas Amador finished 12th, West Plains' Kyler Gunter 13th, Lincoln College Prep's Roman Garcia 15th, Webster Groves' Dominic Buckman 14th, and West Plains' Carson King 16th.
Coach Gunter also noted: "I really believe that this group of boys, I mean they're competitors, and they race and workout and they race, but I really believe that more important than their individual place was their team finish, and I think that's why we got the job done."
Festus was second with 113 points, winning the tiebreaker over Webster Groves who had also scored 113 points. When it looked like the Statesmen may pull in the victory, the momentum had run out and the settled for third, their second straight season with a state trophy and fifth all-time. Cole, Upperman, and Dominic Buckman (14th) were their all-state honorees.
As for Festus, this was their 16th straight season on the podium, a streak that began with their first ever state championship in 2009 and has carried on every year since then. Driemeier and Uding were their only two all-staters on the day, Lucas Campbell was their third man in 34th, and their final two scorers were freshmen Lucas DeClue and Hudson Bates. The Festus reign of terror is apparently far from over.
When the dust had settled from the first three teams, the knock-down-drag-out battle for the fourth trophy had been championed by the boys from Parkway Central with 129 points. From the 1K to the final split, the Colts dropped a total of 84 points, with 20 of those coming over the final kilometer of the race. Moresi's 4th place finish was a major key to the podium effort.
Freshman Lucas Amador stepped up in a big way and picked up 6 places in the final stretch to earn 12th in his first high school season. Brendan Alfonso powered through a tough day at the office to pick up 2 spots and move into 20th. But the biggest difference was made. by four and five-men Beckett Friedman and Noam Buch. Friedman picked up 12 scalps in the final kilometer and 50 in total to finish 43rd with Buch jumping from 84th to 73rd in the final stretch, himself. The 23 points that those two boys picked up were more than enough to propel their squad to their first team trophy since they won the One Class meet in 1971.
Other notable performances: St. Charles junior Elijah Case stepped up to the plate after finishing 31st in 2023 and climbed all the way to 11th. Washington's Steven Broadbent improved the most of anyone on the day by a fairly significant margin. He ran 16:59.50 for 25th, 46.9 seconds better than his 2023 time on a much more friendly weather day. Only two freshmen boys earned individual medals with Kearney's Cameron Fowler picking up a 29th place medal on the day. He led his Bulldogs to a 10th place finish even though they were technically only able to score because they qualified five boys individually at the district meet. They had finished 5th as a team.
