Running on a soggy course on a dreary, rainy day, the Houston High School girls cross country team competed last Saturday in the Missouri State Championships at Columbia.
Running in the Class 3 race, the Lady Tigers placed 16th among 16 teams producing 5-runner scores.
In her final high school race, senior Kristen Ely led the squad by finishing 48th in a field of 163 runners with a time of 21:34.20 on the 5,000-meter Gans Creek course. Next across the line for Houston was freshman Jessyn Allen in 104th at 23:04.60, while junior Lilly Kincaid finished 129th, junior Natalie Clinton placed 132nd and senior Allie Benoist came in 157th.
The Lady Tigers qualified for the meet by placing fourth at the Class 3 District 2 Championships Nov. 2 at Plato. It was the first time since the HHS cross country program was rebooted in 2019 (after being absent since the early 1980s) that an entire team from the school competed at state.
“When we started the season, I really wasn’t in the mindset that we were going to have a full team that was going to be able to contend and make it to the state level,” said Houston head coach Justin Brown. “But at about midseason, we kind of established ourselves and the girls really made some things happen. Getting to this point in four years is a pretty big accomplishment.”
The course was so muddy that several runners fell during the race.
“The weather was perfect on Friday when we did a practice run on the course,” Brown said, “and then we wake up on Saturday and it’s pouring rain. But that’s part of it; it’s cross country, not an indoor sport with regulated conditions.”
St. Charles West won the Class 3 girls state crown with 51 points, while Herculaneum took second with 113 and Owensville was third with 173.
St. Charles West sophomore Brianna Kruger topped the individual standings with a time of 18:46.20, while Notre Dame de Sion freshman Kelly Frank finished second and Owensville senior Ilene Limberg was third.
Ely ran in the Class 3 race at state last year and finished 110th. She ran her fastest time on the course this year.
“She wasn’t very happy about where she finished – she wanted to be in the top-30,” Brown said. “But one of the reasons she’s so successful is that she always wants to push the boundaries and keep getting better.”
The race at state marked the end of the high school cross country careers of Ely and Benoist.
“I told them, ‘what better place to do it than at state?’” Brown said. “To be able to coach them for the past four years has been an honor. I’m going to miss them, but they’ve started something here and we need to keep it going.”
Just prior to leaving for Columbia late last Friday morning, The Lady Tigers were the focus of a special “send-off,” first riding through town in Brown’s vehicle with an escort of police and fire department vehicles, and then walking through the halls at each school as students cheered and applauded in support.
“It was a good experience for the girls – it really made them feel special,” Brown said. “This whole experience is one of those things they’ll look back at down the road and it will always be in their memories. I told them to ‘embrace every moment, because you won’t ever forget this.’”
While Kincaid and Clinton will be seniors in 2025, next year’s HHS girls squad figures to be a youth movement relying heavily on Allen and several freshmen newcomers who have had big-time success at the middle school level.
“We’ll be bringing in some 8th-graders and we’ll be looking to propel ourselves into a different realm,” Brown said. “Whether we’re in Class 3 again or in Class 2, my confidence is pretty high that we’ll be able to get the job done and make it to state again.”
The HHS boys will have some seniors in the mix next season, but Brown said the team will need to improve to reach its goals.
“We’ve got some work to do if we want to get to that state level with them. Whether it’s Class 2 or 3, it’s going to be tough for them.”
Complete results from the State Championships can be viewed online at mo.milesplit.com.
“These girls have set the tone for what this program can do,” Brown said. “We’re looking pretty solid for the next few years; it’s pretty exciting and there are big things to come.”
