Over the next several weeks, Missouri MileSplit will be doing a deep dive into the top returners for each event heading into the 2025 Track and Field season. We will have premium rankings pieces highlighting the top 100 returners in each classification as well as an overall outlook for each event for all non-subscribers. Let's take a look at the Girls Discus.
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Class 5 Outlook
On the surface, it looks like Liberty's Alyssah Price is ready to jump from the second spot on the State podium up to first. She threw 41.91m (137-6) last May and finished 12 feet behind State champion Katy Taylor.
Price, though, will have to contend with Jefferson City's Stevenette Samuels as the Lady Jays move back into the largest class. Samuels threw 44.04m (144-5.75) and even cleared Price's personal best five different times, including her gold medal effort at the Class 4 State meet.
Platte County's Addyson Schlake is next on marks with a personal best of 41.57m (136-4.5), her only mark over 40 meters of her career, and was 11th at the State meet.
Washington's Alyssa Repke is next on mark and was the second non-senior at the 2024 State meet, but Washington's enrollment could and should push them back into Class 4 this year, making her the top returner there instead. She threw 40.89m (134-2) for fourth at State. Francis Howell's Addyson Brown is one of three more girls with marks over 120 feet, four if you include Ladue's Sabra Fink, who should be moving up from Class 4. The other two are Belton's Saniyah Kearney and Blue Springs junior Rayana Petty-Calhoun. Brown is the only returning Class 5 all-stater of the group as she owns a seventh place medal from last year's meet. Fink was seventh, as well, in Class 4.
Washington's Alyssa Repke
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Class 4 Outlook
Class 4 will obviously experience a shake-up, as we mentioned in the Class 5 section. With two of the top five moving up to Class 5, and one of Class 5's top returners claiming the top spot in Class 4 with her move down, what we see in the rankings will most definitely be starkly different than what we see when the season ends.
Parkway Central's Priya Cheatham is the best of the ones we have yet to mention as she continues to improve throughout her career. Cheatham contributed five points to the third place team finish effort a year after transferring from Class 5 powerhouse Cardinal Ritter. Her 40.49m (132-10) is one of two career marks over 40 meters, though it was 37.72m throw that earned her a sixth place medal last spring. Next on the list is a senior we should have also mentioned in our javelin preview, but missed the entire 2024 season due to injury. Festus's Rylie Moore should be back and ready to add another strong piece to the Tigers' puzzle as she was tenth at State in this event as a sophomore and threw a personal best of 38.05m (124-10). She was eighth in the Javelin that year, as well.
Kearney's Maya Sosoatu is heading into her junior season with a personal best of 37.86m (124-2.5) and is looking to improve upon a thirteenth place State finish. Lutheran (St. Charles) Alexis Feldhake finished out her junior season with a massive 4 meter personal best of 37.74m (123-10) at the Sectional 2 meet, though it was only good enough for fifth. Nevertheless, she ended her season over 10 meters better than she had ended her sophomore campaign and is now among Class 4's top athletes. Pleasant Hill's Sidney Koehler and Marshfield's Gracelyn Bull are the only others over 120 feet in Class 4.
Marshfield's Gracelyn Bull
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Class 3 Outlook
Only two girls return for the 2025 season in Class 3 with personal bests over 120 feet: Centralia's Kassena Ridgel and Oak Grove's Eva Alexander. Alexander, a sophomore, is second on the list with a 37.13m (121-10) best, but she was the top non-senior at last year's State meet, finishing fourth behind three since-graduated athletes. Ridgel, on the other hand, ended up fifth at her District meet and, as a result, did not get a shot at a State medal. She threw a personal best of 37.26m (122-3) in early April.
Eve Alexander, left, Sadie Midgyett, right
Herculaneum's Macy Pope finished just behind Alexander in fifth place. Her 35.79m was good enough for her first career State medal, but the Blackcat closed out her sophomore year with a best of 36.01m (118-1.75) mark to her name. Two other all-staters are back for the 2025 season in northwest corridor natives Ellie Willnerd and Sadie Midgyett. Midgyett's 36.32m (119-2) mark is third on the 2025 Class 3 list. Winfield's Lilly Harl was twelfth in her first career trip to State and after a year hiatus, but her 35.56m (116-8) best has her fifth among returners.
Macy Pope, right, Ellie Willnerd, left
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Class 2 Outlook
The top two finishers at the 2024 Class 2 State meet are back for the 2025 season -- and will most likely be back for the 2026 season, as well. Monroe City's Timia Reinberg is ready to repeat as State champion this spring.
First or second in all eleven meets, Reinberg climbed to the top of the podium last May after finishing second in 2023. Her 40.72m (133-7) best came at the Sectional meet and is eleven feet ahead of the next closest returner, Butler's Kylee Dubray. A rising sophomore, Dubray was able to snag the silver medal with a nearly five meter personal best throw at the State meet, hitting 37.32m (122-5) on her first heave of the day.
Only four others head into the season with bests over 110 feet led by Iberia's Adara Langatau. Langatau threw 35.88m (117-8.5) in her first meet of the season and finished an unfortunate fifth at her Sectional meet for the second straight year. East Buchanan's Brooklynn Johnson ended up fourteenth at State in 2024, but her 34.96m (114-8.5) best is over five meters better than what she posted there. Westran's Kate Hollmann is one of the four returning all-staters after she finished fourth in her 34.85m (114-4) personal best. The other all-state returner is Monroe City's Samantha Hathaway, though she is not the sixth girl over 110 feet -- that distinction belongs to Aaliyah Lee of University Academy Charter.
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Class 1 Outlook
Class 1 has a bit more depth than Class 2, with eight girls over 110 feet as opposed to six, and a similarly dominant athlete at the top: West Nodaway's Ava Graham. The Drake University commit is looking to win State gold number two after being left off the top of the podium in the shot put last season and failing to complete a mark at her District meet in the discus. She did throw 40.21m (131-11) in late April which puts her tops on the Class 1 list heading into the 2025 season.
It is Clopton's Bailey Baker who is next on the list with a 38.4m (126-0) personal best to her name. Baker was sixth at the State meet last spring, her second trip to the podium in her career. Lannah Grigg of Thomas Jefferson Independent makes it three girls over 120 feet with her 36.78m (120-8) best, a mark that was good enough for third at last year's State meet. After Baker and Grigg, there is only one other returning all-stater: New Haven's Katherine Holtmeyer. She is fifth on the returners list with a 34.85m (114-4) 2024 season best, but she did clear 35.42m (116-2.5) in 2023. Ahead of her on the returners list is her teammate Alayna Lagemann, a senior who threw 35.56m (116-8) to win her Sectional meet, but ended up twelfth at State.