Mustangs, Morrison qualify for state meet

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Sports

October 24, 2016 - 12:00 AM

BURLINGTON — The veteran-laden Mustangs will be taking their show on the road to the 4A state cross country meet in Wamego next Saturday. With them will be a Fillie.
Freshman Kelsey Morrison began the banner day for Iola’s cross country teams by taking 12th in the girls’ race with a time of 21:05.02 to earn her spot at the state meet.
“That would be pretty cool,” the laid-back Morrison said about possibly making it to state.
Morrison was the final individual qualifier to make the cut to advance, so immediately after the race she wasn’t sure if she had made it, but she knew that she was happy with her performance.
“I ran my best,” Morrison said. “That is all I can do.”
She ran 28 seconds better than her time on the same course during last week’s league meet.
Morrison will have plenty of company for her trip north next weekend as they boys’ team accomplished their season-long goal of advancing to state as a team.
“Last year, we qualified as a team for state,” Iola senior Kendall Jay said. “Now this year, we all have improved our times so we will do better.”
The team aspect is hard to miss with this group of Mustangs as it extends from its trio of top senior runners throughout the lineup.
That team-first attitude was on display as sophomore No. 7 runner Bryce Andres quickly went up to Iola coach Marv Smith after the race to tell him which runners he passed from other schools and explained that he is the seven-runner and it is his job to knock other team’s top-five runners back further to add as many points as he can to Iola’s opponents scores.
Now Andres and all his teammates will see that selflessness pay off with a berth in the state meet.
“It is a great reward for all of the hard practices they have had,” Coach Smith said.
Coach Smith likes to talk about when his runners run what he refers to as a ‘hero’s race’ and have an outstanding performance individually.
On Saturday, you could argue that each member of the Mustangs ran a ‘hero’s race’ to qualify for state, but for the second week in a row freshman Royce Smith’s performance stood out.
“We were nervous,” Jay said. “It was a shocker when Elijah got sick, because we weren’t sure if we would be able to make state as a team.”
Smith is normally the team’s No. 6 runner and his score doesn’t factor into the team scoring, but last week at the Burlington Invitational, Yates Center and Iola tied for the team championship and the tiebreaker came down to which team had the higher-scoring sixth runner, which Smith won easily.
“People were saying that I won the last meet for us, but I don’t think about it that way,” Smith said. “We all ran the best we could and got it done together, I just happened to be the sixth runner to finish it off.”
This week, fellow-freshman and No. 5 runner Elijah Fawson was battling illness all week and even though he ran the race, he was far from 100 percent.
“I try to work my hardest every race, but this week it mattered more because Elijah was sick,” Smith said. “I feel like I stepped up and got the job done and now we are off to state.”
Coach Smith instructed Royce to run with Fawson so if his teammate needed drop out of the race or slow his pace, then Smith could take over the five spot for the team and his time could become a team’s fifth mark.
“At the beginning he ran like normal, but he slowed down and that is when I knew I had to step up and I kicked it in about the second mile,” Smith said.
Smith executed the plan and as Fawson begin to falter midway through the race Smith took off and finished 32nd with a time 20 seconds better than he had at the same course last week in the league meet with a 18:47.62. The time allowed Iola to comfortably qualify for state with a third-place team score in the meet, 55 points ahead of Labette County.
I don’t know what Coach Smith’s exact definition of a ‘hero’s race’ is, but I’m willing to bet that qualifies.
The leader around the course for Iola was Jay, who finished sixth with a 17:15.02.
Jay’s time was ten seconds better than last week’s league meet time at Burlington.
Senior Braden Plumlee joined his classmate on the medalists’ platform at the end of the meet by running a 17:32.93 to take 10th.
Plumlee was knocked to the ground early in the traffic at the beginning of the race, but got up to still manage a time 12 seconds better than his performance last week.
Isaiah Fawson rounded out the Mustangs top seniors with 18:03.02 to finish 16th.
His time beat his league time by three seconds.
Sophomore Cole Regehr continued that trend of improving over league marks. Regehr ran the race nine seconds ahead of his mark last weekend and finished with a 18:15.34 and earned him 21st.
Smith’s time rounded out the team scoring and clinched a place at state.
“To qualify as a team is way more special,” Jay said. “We get to run out there one more time together.”
Elijah Fawson took 54th out of 99 runners despite a sinus infection that caused him to miss three and a half days of school this week. His 19:29.28 is significantly slower than his time at league.
However, with Fawson healthy next week, that raises the ceiling of what the Mustangs could accomplish at state.
Andres finished in 56th with a 19:30.54.
The Fillies just missed having a second freshman at state with Elysia Kunkler running a 21:26.93 and ending up one spot away from qualification.
Senior Megan Klubek was not far off of a state qualifying time either by running a 21:49.46 and taking 23rd.
Elka Billings was 26th with a 22:02.97.
Freshman Rachel Bycroft rounded out the team-scoring runners with a 22:06.31 to get 31st.
Iola finished fourth as a team, one spot off of earning team qualification.
Madisyn Holloway was 38th and Olivia Taylor finished 50th to round out the Fillies’ times.
Coach Smith said that he will really miss this team.
“I am hard-pressed to come up with a team from the past who has had a better work ethic, day after day, and that I saw the amount of improvement from the first meet to the last,” Smith said. “Typically, a season is marked with highs and lows from week to week. There were none of those ‘lows’ and it was because of everyone on the team. I hate to see it come to an end.”

STATE SCHEDULE
Morrison will run at the Wamego Country Club at 10:40 a.m., on Saturday.
The Mustangs will run at 12:20 p.m.

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