Note: Results of Thursday’s Three River League Cross Country Meet were not available by press time.
COLONY — As the 2024 cross country season reaches its home stretch — regional races are next week, and qualifiers from there will run at their respective state meets on Nov. 2 — hopes remain sky high for Crest High’s racers to add their impressive resumes.
The Lady Lancers, who finished third in the state in 2022 and as runners-up last fall, are again one of the top-ranked Class 1A teams in the state.
This, despite having only four girls on the roster, the bare minimum to qualify as a team for the state competition.
Sure, there’s pressure, admitted the Crest dynamic trio of Josie Walter, Peyton Schmidt and Aubrey Allen.
But most of that pressure comes internally, from their constant drive to do better.
“They’re high achievers in whatever they do,” Crest assistant coach Tish Hug noted. “They’ll push themselves.”
So, if the breaks fall the right way, head coach Kaitlyn Cummings is cautiously optimistic Crest can add another successful chapter in the team’s legacy.
The Lady Lancers have been ranked second or third in statewide cross country coaches poll all season, alongside Ness City and South Gray.
“We’re all very comparable,” Cummings said. “It’s all gonna come down to running. Who’s gonna run best on that day.”
BUT AS the season has progressed, it’s growing increasingly evident that the Lancer program likely won’t take a step back once Walter, Schmidt and Allen cross their final finish line as seniors, thanks to a large crop of middle-schoolers set on becoming the next generation of cross country stalwarts at CHS.
Twins Lynnex and Jorden Allen, seventh-grade sisters of Aubrey, have found themselves atop the standings in every race they’ve run. Lynnex, in fact, has yet to finish below third in any cross country meet this season. Sixth-grader Piper Schmidt, Peyton’s younger sister, has made top-10 finishes routine, even while running against older seventh-graders.
Tack on others like Klaire Nilges, Aidynn Edgerton and Bailey Boone (another sixth-grader) on the girls’ side, and middle-school boys like Lukas Taylor and Isaac and Wyatt Francis, and you have the foundation capable of keeping the program up and running (no pun intended) after the current high-schoolers have graduated
“That’s a good word for it — a program,” Hug said. “My husband and I were having a conversation, and he said other schools have teams, but they don’t have a program. Kaitlyn has built a very good program here.”
It helps that Cummings, who teaches first grade at Crest Elementary School, has already developed a bond with the youngsters by the time they’ve reached middle school.
