Rick Peck
Special to McDonald County Press
Emily High overcame tough conditions at the Missouri Class 4 Sectional 3 Cross Country Championships held Saturday in Camdenton to earn a trip to Saturday's state championships in Jefferson City.
High finished in 17th place in a time of 19:52. Her 17th place was well within the top 30 who advanced to Jefferson City even though her time was about four seconds slower than her time at last week's district championships in Nixa.
"I was nervous starting out because I was ranked 28th and a lot of people that were ranked behind me were really close to my time," High said. "When I first started out I heard people yelling you're in 30th and I thought 'OK this is not going to happen.' I didn't start out real fast and a lot of people couldn't handle the pace and fell behind. It felt awesome when I crossed the finish line. I could hardly feel the pain."
But despite running the 3.1 mile race a few seconds slower at sectionals than she did at districts, High finished higher than five of the 15 runners who bettered her at districts even though the district in which McDonald County competed last week had seven out of the top eight finishers at sectionals.
Six of those seven were from Raymore-Peculiar High School or Lee's Summit West High School. Kiley Deain of Ray-Pec defeated Alex Marko of Lee's Summit West by about five seconds to claim the sectional title in a time of 18:54.
Ray-Pec won the team title with 35 points with Lee's Summit second with 57.
"It was an exciting race," said coach Darbi Stancell. "She was in command the whole race. She had a great start and when I saw her six-tenths of a mile in she was in a huge pack somewhere in the 20s. When I saw her about 1.6 miles in, she was in 29th. I knew by the look on her face she was going to do it, but I was still surprised to see with about three minutes of the race left she had moved up to 15th. She ran strong and confident on a course she had never seen."
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Stancell said for High to advance to sectionals in class 4, cross country's largest class, is quite an accomplishment.
"A Class 4 section in the state of Missouri is one-fourth of the largest schools in the state," Stancell said. "So out of an enrollment of over 18,000 girls that could run cross country, she was 17th. That's a pretty big deal."
Stancell said the course had several spots were it was mucky from where cars had driven across the course.
"She had to go over these mucky areas four times and all the girls had to slow down a little bit to keep from slipping," Stancell said. "It was also very crowded. Class 4 doesn't get strung out as much as Class 3 so it was a very crowded pack she was running in. It was also a very narrow course so that slowed you down in the beginning."
Stancell said High was peaking at the right time.
"She looked phenomenal," Stancell said. "Everything is coming together probably better than any athlete I have ever coached."
The Missouri State High School Activities Association state championships will be held Saturday at Oak Hills Golf Course in Jefferson City. The Class 4 girls race is scheduled to start at 11:55 a.m.
Sports on 11/05/2015