Last weekend, two of the most prestigious national cross country meets took place: Nike Cross Nationals and the RunningLane Cross Country Championships. The former has been, for nearly two decades, the premier event for the nation's top teams and individuals to compete against each other and decide once and for all: Who is the best team/individual runner in the entire country? The latter has recently emerged as the best chance at an end-of-season personal best for any athletes willing to travel to Huntsville, Alabama's John Hunt Running Park and traverse the 5 Kilometer course. Missouri, once again, had representatives at both meets.
Nike Cross Nationals is a highly prestigious event and extremely exclusive, even with the nearly 200 athletes who toe the line in both the girls' and boys' races. Only 22 teams from around the country - the top 2 teams at each of the 9 regionals, plus 4 at-large teams - earn an opportunity to run at the national meet. The top 5 individuals from each region who were not a part of a qualifying team also get a chance at All-American honors (Top 21). This year, for the first time since 2006, the Show-Me State was represented with a team as the boys from Rockhurst qualified for the prestigious meet in Portland, Oregon this year.
Coming off an emphatic victory at the Class 5 State Championships earlier last month, the Hawklets set their eyes on the NXR Midwest Championships and came out in second place, earning a berth to the National meet. Coach Michael Dierks's squad had made history once again and were set for a date with the best of the best from around the US.
Photo Credit: Jen Jardeleza
A beautiful day for previewing the course on Friday turned into a typical day for the Nike Cross Nationals meet on Saturday: a wet, muddy mess wherein the athletes who were the toughest mentally (and most sure-footed) would come out on top. Personal bests were out the window on this day - the only thing to do was compete.
Photo Credit: Jen Jardeleza
The boys would end up in 13th place out of the 22 finishing teams, just behind their 11th place ranking in the country heading into the meet. Senior Henry Acorn led the way once again, as he has done all year, running 16:20.70 and finishing 60th. That the state's fastest runner during the regular season would finish 60th in this meet truly shows just how packed with talent the field was. Fellow senior Kai Somasegaran also finished in the top 70 with his 69th place finish in 16:25.40. The rest of the team shaped up as follows:
The senior-heavy team will return two of the top freshmen in the state this past year in McGovern and Morrison and has a deep junior varsity team ready to step up and fill the gaps. Their historic season ends with an overall 1-5 average of 15:26.69, 80 seconds faster than their performance on Saturday, but take a look at the photos from that day and you can see fairly plainly why.
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Meanwhile, in beautiful Huntsville, Alabama, where the sun was shining and temperatures were comfortably in the mid-to-low 50s, more of Missouri's best tried their hand at ending their season with a personal best. One Missourian snatched the top ranking in the state with his performance.
Festus junior Carson Driemeier has been near the top of the rankings lists all season with his 5 individual victories, including the Class 4 State Championships in dominating fashion, and 15:05.90 personal best at the Chile Pepper XC Festival. Driemeier's luck throughout the season had not translated exactly to the Regional meets as he finished 8th at the Nike Cross Regionals Midwest meet, just off a qualifying spot, and 36th at the Foot Locker Midwest Regional meet two weekends ago. His 15:06.04 mark at NXR Midwest was just off his personal best, but this past Saturday's race would prove that he had just a bit more to do before he called it a cross country season.
Driemeier would finish 4th overall in the RunningLane Cross Country Championships Gold Division, running a new Missouri No. 1 mark and Festus High School record (according to our database) of 14:50.79. The mark is also fifth all-time in State history, cementing up there with the greats Burns, Wilde, Hauser, and Tegenkamp, among others. A fantastic finish to a fantastic junior campaign.
The 13 boys who competed at RunningLane are listed below. Class 5 All-Stater Cameron Martensen of Rolla picked up a personal best with his 62nd place finish. The Platte County duo of Tanner Jenks and Blake Herron also picked up personal bests, as did Lee's Summit West senior Kaden Deain and Parkway Central freshman Lucas Amador. Amador's 15:53.57 makes him the 4th freshman to break 16:00 this year, the most the state has ever seen in one year.
In the girls race, Cor Jesu's Mary McKenzie was the fastest of the Missourians and became the 4th girl to break 18:00 this season with her 17:46.57 season best. While it was still 6 seconds off the mark she turned in in 2023, the 8th place finisher in this year's Class 5 State Championships will finish out the season among the state's best with her mark and appears to be back on track for a stellar junior track season.
Only four girls made the trip down to Alabama and they are listed below:
Last weekend, two of the most prestigious national cross country meets took place: Nike Cross Nationals and the RunningLane Cross Country Championships. The former has been, for nearly two decades, the premier event for the nation's top teams and individuals to compete against each other and decide once and for all: Who is the best team/individual runner in the entire country? The latter has recently emerged as the best chance at an end-of-season personal best for any athletes willing to travel to Huntsville, Alabama's John Hunt Running Park and traverse the 5 Kilometer course. Missouri, once again, had representatives at both meets.
Nike Cross Nationals is a highly prestigious event and extremely exclusive, even with the nearly 200 athletes who toe the line in both the girls' and boys' races. Only 22 teams from around the country - the top 2 teams at each of the 9 regionals, plus 4 at-large teams - earn an opportunity to run at the national meet. The top 5 individuals from each region who were not a part of a qualifying team also get a chance at All-American honors (Top 21). This year, for the first time since 2006, the Show-Me State was represented with a team as the boys from Rockhurst qualified for the prestigious meet in Portland, Oregon this year.
