By Mike Courson
The prep cross country season may have ended on Oct. 30, but a handful of Great Bend runners still had one more finish line to cross. More than 3,000 high school runners from seven states gathered in Sioux Falls, S.D. Sunday to compete in the Nike Cross Country Heartland Regional.
Great Bend High School cross country coach Lyles Lashley began taking athletes to the meet in 2014 as head coach at Ellinwood. There was no race last year due to Covid-19, but runners from Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas were back in action this year.
“Especially for the young kids, it’s good to take them there to see who the best of the best of the seven states are,” said Lashley. “You throw in Wisconsin and Minnesota, those states run some pretty good cross country.”
There were seven races in all Sunday, highlighted by the championship races in the afternoon. Those races featured the top 22 regional teams and the top 45 individual runners from the seven states.
The top-three finishers from the boys’ Class 5A state meet all ran in the championship race. Great Bend’s Kaiden Esfeld finished 38th in 15:48.7, just six seconds from a top-30 finish.
“Competing at this high level felt like an honor,” Esfeld said. “To be with the top runners from all sorts of states and be able to be in the fastest race was something to be proud of.
“I personally feel like the pressure between state and NXR was very close. The main difference is that at state I was mainly focusing on my placing, but at NXR I was focusing mostly on a new PR.”
Aquinas senior Logan Seger, the 5A state champion, ran third overall in 15:10.1, just five seconds behind the silver. Aquinas senior Ashton Higgerson, who beat Esfeld by three seconds at state to win the silver, finished 47 seconds behind Esfeld in 16:31.7. Omaha senior Gabe Hinrichs, a Nebraska state champion, won the gold in 15:00.
Aquinas had three of the top-five finishers at the 5A state meet to cruise to that title. The Saints finished a point out of 14th Sunday. Minnesota’s Class 3A Champion Wayzata won the team title by 11 spots.
Great Bend’s Emilia Diaz was the lead runner for the Lady Panther team that recently finished third at state. She ran 138th overall Sunday with a time of 19:55.5, 17 seconds off her state time.
“It was quiet a race with high-level runners,” she said. “It was tough but fun.”
University of Minnesota-commit Ali Weimer, the Class 3A champion at home, won the girls’ race by five seconds in 17:03.3. Olathe North sophomore Anjali Hocker Singh, the lead runner in Kansas this fall and a two-time Class 6A champion, placed fourth in 17:11.5, less than half a second behind the bronze.
As freshmen and sophomore entries, three Great Bend runners competed in the Rising Star race Sunday morning with temperatures hanging around 25 degrees and a wind chill of 18 degrees. Kansas runners largely escaped the cold this season and were in for a shock in South Dakota.
“(The cold) was definitely a factor because you could barely feel your body,” said sophomore Eliana Beckham said. “Some people were used to that cold and others weren’t.”
“It changed the way your body felt during the race,” seconded sophomore Addy Nicholson. “I couldn’t tell how my body was feeling during the race and what pace I was going so it was hard to know how I was doing.”
Beckham, the fourth scorer on the Lady Panther state team, led the trio Sunday in 39th with a time of 21:06.8. Just behind her, Nicholson ran 40th in 21:09.5. Minnesota eighth-grader Amelia Borgen was the lone runner in the race to crack 19 minutes to get the win by 19 seconds in 18:54.7.
Great Bend freshman Reese King ran for the Lady Panthers at regionals with a 14th-place finish but did not compete at state. In the Rising Star race she finished 52nd with a time of 21:25.6.
“It was pretty neat running with the top runners from seven states,” King said. “I think the cold definitely slowed me down because I’m not used to it.”
If cold was a factor Sunday morning, hills were not. The Great Bend faction had an earlier walkthrough to learn the course, and some would have preferred more than the two small hills featured on the course.
“I liked the course a lot and it was very nicely marked and even ground,” Beckham said. “However I wish there were some bigger hills since that’s where I can usually catch people.”
“I thought the course was very different,” said Nicholson. “We were so used to hills and turns everywhere. It was a nice little change of scenery.”
Kansas runners did well in the championship races. Seger finished third in the boys’ race, and Class 6A champion Micah Blomker of Shawnee Mission North placed fifth. Augusta’s Sawyer Schmidt, the Class 4A champion, finished seventh, and Buhler’s Tanner Lindahl, the 4A runner up, missed the top-20 by just half a second.
On the girls’ side, Hocker Singh was joined by senior teammate Kaylee Tobaben, who ran 17th overall. Olathe North placed sixth as a team. Shawnee Mission Northwest junior Paige Mullen, the 6A bronze medalist, placed 33rd. Maize senior Zoie Ecord, the runner up at the Great Bend regional meet, placed 119th.
The Great Bend runners can now turn their attention to the upcoming track season this spring. Esfeld medaled in both distance events and should get yet another rematch against the Aquinas runners.
“I’m seeing what things I will need to work on,” he said. “I can tell my finish has gotten stronger and is only getting better. Some great things will happen this coming track season.”
Beckham was part of the Lady Panther 4x800m and 4x400m relay teams that placed 10th at state, and she placed 11th in the open 800. Diaz ran in both distance events at state last year, and Nicholson ran at state in the 3200m run.
“I am very excited for both teams and myself for the upcoming season,” Beckham said. “I think our teams will have successful seasons and become even stronger than last year. We just need to keep putting in the extra work and have our hearts in it.”