Returning to the University of Missouri – Columbia’s course at Gans Creek Recreational Area for the second time in their season, Summit’s Girls Cross Country team competed in the state championship Class 4 race against 15 other schools, placing 10th. The athletes, freshmen Lauren Boyher and Bella Burlbaw, sophomore Abigail James, junior Molly Jones, and seniors Nika Gilbert and Claire Worley ran in the meet. Sophomores Audrey Lacroix and Audrey Struckhoff, along with senior Julia Shiner went as alternates.

Head Coach Jason Miller said what helped the team achieve their placement was their chemistry and team-oriented mindsets.

“The strength this year was that they ran like a team instead of a bunch of individuals. We didn’t finish in our normal order, [so] it looks like, maybe to somebody from the outside, that it fell apart. But we still came in 10th. We still exceeded our expectations,” Miller said.

Jones said that she felt good at the state meet because she was well-prepared and had the support of the rest of her team.

“Knowing that we put in so much hard work over the season really helped. We got really good sleep that night before, and had all sorts of good food, and I had my friends with me,” Jones said.

After qualifying an entire team for state for the first time since 2022, Miller said that he tries to set new, ambitious goals each year. Although qualifying for state as a team is normal for some teams every year, Miller said that he wants his girls to compete hard to qualify.

“We want to compete at the very end, and we’d like to have teams qualify [for state]. If we got a team to qualify every year, that’d be amazing. To some people, that might just make it too easy, but we’d like to qualify every year and compete. I think for next year we can finish better than 10th, and that’s kind of what we’re going to start saying too, which is vulnerable to say. We’re going for a trophy next year. It’s very vulnerable, because the odds already fall short of that,” Miller said.

While the girls were happy with the meet’s results, James said that one thing she could have done to improve was to stretch more thoroughly considering an injury that she was recovering from in her knee.

“I probably could have stretched a little bit more. I did stretch a lot, but stretch more. My knee really hurt during the race, but that’s just an injury,” James said.

Something that was stressed this season, Miller said, was pushing athletes to work hard for each other, and focus on the team’s success rather than individual success and times.

“We spent more time thinking about, ‘we’re doing this for each other. It’s not about our time or our place necessarily, but we’re doing it for each other.’ And I think that really sunk in with this group, maybe more so than a lot of groups in the past. It’s easy to be selfish in this sport with [your] time, as opposed to [thinking], ‘I’m going to finish this because my teammate is trying too,’” Miller said.