By: Mickey Redlingshafer
The varsity cross country team, which has placed in the top five in every meet this season, will compete at Sectionals this Saturday in hopes of going to State. The team, ranked seventh in the state of Missouri, is led by junior Lane Maguire who set a personal record this season, tying the school record for a 5K.
Maguire has not been the only key runner this year; according to coach Karen Moran-Redlich this season has been one of the best because many girls on the team are performing at a high level. Freshman Ann Campbell set a personal record, becoming one of only three freshmen ever to win a spot on the list of the top 30 times in STA history. Senior Kelly O’Byrne lead the team as a captain and the sole senior on varsity throughout the whole season. The other four runners participating in the post-season are juniors Courtney Coppinger and Sarah Vickery, sophomore Lindsey Valdiviez and freshman Hayden Lee. The four alternates are senior and captain Lane Schulte, senior Haley Winslow, junior Hannah McCausland and sophomore Katie Hornbeck.
Coppinger is excited about the team’s ranking and success this season.
“We have come close to [beating] teams this year that we were farther off from last year, “ Coppinger said. “Overall the times of our varsity runners are impressive, hopefully [these times are] predicting a good State turnout.”
Moran-Redlich and Coppingier both believe that varsity has a good chance at winning Sectionals and making it to State, which will occur Nov. 5 in Jefferson City, Missouri.
“Not only do I think we can make it to State but I think our chances at doing well at State are really high,” Coppinger said. “I think we have a chance to make it into the top four [teams] and get a banner.”
Placing in the top four at State will get the team a new banner in the Goppert Center.
Moran-Redlich attributes this season’s success to off-season training, and she hopes this year will be a good example to motivate runners to keep training in the off-season.
“I think the biggest factor [contributing to the successful season] is the off-season training the girls did this summer, and the training the girls that ran tack did this spring,” Moran-Redlich said. “They made the extra effort to be in excellent shape going into the season.The girls that [made this extra effort] are the ones competing in the post-season.”
Campbell agreed that off-season training helped the team this season, and it showed at the Kansas City All Metro meet, when every varsity runner set a new personal record. Maguire ran the 5k in 18:53 tying the school record. At the same meet Campbell’s time, 19:29, put her on the list of the top 30 times for an STA cross country runner ever.
Coppinger believes Campbell has really made an impact on the team this year.
“Ann Campbell is like crazy good, this year she ran [a meet] in under 20 minutes,” Coppinger said. “I never did that as a freshman and neither did Lane [Maguire].”
Moran-Redlich explained that not only did varsity have strong times, but JV, led by captain senior Stephanie Hampel, did as well, placing first in every meet, except the Kansas City All Metro, where they placed second out of 23 teams. However in this meet alone 34 out of STA’s 43 JV runners set a personal record.
“We have always had a strong JV squad, but [this year] our JV squad has so much depth that they are better than a lot of varsity teams from other schools,” Moran said. “Most meets they really dominated the field.”
Coppinger explains her excitment for the post-season this year, and hopes next year will be just as successful.
“The cross country team has done the best it has in the past couple years,” Coppinger said. “We know our hard work and training through this 12 week season will help guide our efforts into earning a high spot at State and getting us a trophy and a banner with our names on it. After this year, I think our team will really only get better.”
