State history was made on Saturday morning at the McCullough-Douglass Invitational when, for the first time on Missouri soil, three boys broke 9:00 in the same 3200 race. Before Saturday's event, there had never been more than one athlete under the 9:00 barrier in a single race. On a stage set to deliver fast times at an unprecedented level, track fans left thoroughly satisfied.
Relive the second half of the race here.
----------------------------
Photo: Chris Auckley
SLUH's Jackson Miller led the charge as his "breakout" junior year continues into the outdoor season. Already a superstar as a freshman and sophomore, Miller has continued to raise the bar as an 11th grader, running 15:07.00 this past fall, and 4:08.38 and 8:58.52 in the mile and 2 mile this winter. He used a 60.7 final lap on Saturday to secure victory over the star-studded field in a new outdoor personal best and MO No. 8 all-time mark of 8:56.57.
In second was Carson Driemeier, earning a top three finish on his home track for the second straight year. Driemeier is now a two-time sub-9:00 runner as he dropped his personal best from 8:59.27 at last year's Arcadia Invitational down to 8:57.36, a MO No. 9 all-time mark. The decorated Festus senior and Iowa State commit ran 14:41.94 to qualify for Nike Cross Nationals this past fall and posted a 9:01.24 3200 mark in his lone indoor race this winter.
Class 5 State cross country champion Jack McGovern made history in his own right by shattering the state's sophomore class record in a time of 8:59.00. His outdoor debut came with some self doubt after battling a recent case of the flu, as he described, but was still everything we expected. This winter, he nearly broke 9:00 for a full 2 miles with his 9:00.05 mark at Nike Indoor Nationals. McGovern told us that he will be heading to Arcadia later next month to try to drop that personal best even further.
--
Two others went under 9:05 in this race: Rolla's Cameron Martensen and Rock Bridge's Luke Sievers. Both seniors looked sharp in their first highly competitive meets with Martensen storming back after falling just behind the lead pack of four to finish fourth in 9:04.05. Sievers ran 9:04.42, just off his indoor mark of 9:00.78. Both performances landed the boys in the top 25 in state history.
Hermann's Nolan Kopp finished sixth in what appears to be one of the top five fastest marks posted by a Class 1 or 2 athlete. Kopp's 9:15.09 was a 15-second outdoor personal best and came on the heels of an 8:51.30 3000 meter best this indoor season (9:30.13 converted 3200).
Parkway West's Wade Patten and Notre Dame sophomore Aidan Morris ran 9:18.83 and 9:19.52 respectively, making this the first non-State Championship race on Missouri soil in which 8 boys were under 9:20. With Ezekiel Hagen's 9:20.85 and Lucas Amador's 9:31.60 marks included, we saw 3 of the top 15 and 4 of the top 45 sophomore marks in state history on Saturday. In other news, Parkway Central's Blake Nagus cracked the top 50 in freshman state history with his 9:49.09 performance in the day's later race.