Davies lead Spartan boys to 2nd-place finish at State
Layne Moore finishes 8th; EHS girls place 3rd despite illnesses
By Michael Ashford
Monday, October 30, 2006
Expect the unexpected when it comes to the Emporia High boys cross country team.
That was EHS coach Mark Stanbrough’s explanation following the Spartan boys’ second-place finish at the State meet at Rim Rock on Saturday — the fourth straight year the EHS boys have finished as the State runner-up — in which junior Jacob Davies was Emporia’s top runner instead of the usual Asher Delmott.
“It’s been an interesting year, not being sure which guy is going to run which position — but that can be good,” Stanbrough said. “I think at the beginning of the year, not too many people thought we’d be here competing to win the thing.
“We lost four guys who were all State champions in either cross country or track and field off of last year’s team, and our top returner, Ryan Parks, had some health problems and wasn’t able to run to his ability. We had a lot of new people step in and perform at a high level.”
The Spartans finished with 84 team points, 31 points behind the champion, St. Thomas Aquinas, a team that beat Emporia for the fourth time this season. The Spartan girls, with two crucial runners hampered by illness, still finished third as a team.
“We had two very good showings from both the girls and the boys,” Stanbrough said.
Davies led the way for the EHS boys with a 13th-place finish on the 5-kilometer course in a time of 17:09, making it just the second race this year that Davies has finished as Emporia’s top runner. In leading the Spartan field, Davies showed a strong kick at the end of the race, passing St. Thomas Aquinas’ Kyle Hanson just before the finish line to break up a group of three Aquinas runners.
“I figured I might as well try. I had a little bit left, and I knew that I probably wasn’t going to get all three of the St. Thomas Aquinas guys, but I got one of them,” Davies said. “You can go faster than you think you can.”
On a Rim Rock course that only gets harder as the race progresses, the fact that he had anything left in the tank at the race’s end somewhat surprised Davies.
“The first mile went by really fast. I didn’t even know we were at the mile,” said Davies, who managed a 1-minute P.R. from his race at Rim Rock earlier this year. “The second mile was pretty hard, and the last mile, I couldn’t feel anything at the end. Coming up the hill (before the finish), I was just trying to find the finish line.”
Tyler Anliker ran with Davies the whole way, coming in 15th (17:10) while Delmott, Emporia’s top finisher in every other race but one this season, finished in 18th.
Mike Robinson finished 27th (17:33) and Lance Sadler came in 37th (17:45) to cap the Spartans’ scoring. Andrew Wayman (65th, 18:34) and Parks (75th, 19:00) were the other EHS finishers. Great Bend’s Sloane Kern, who earlier in the year won the Emporia Invitational, was the boys’ individual champion in a time of 16:26.
With Parks as the only senior on the boys squad, Stanbrough said the outlook for the future remains strong for the Spartan boys.
“This is a group that, they’re not the most talented group I’ve coached, but they’ve been a very competitive group; a hard-working, good-training group,” Stanbrough said. “They’re going to be good next year. They’re going to be real good next year. This is a group that I think is going to train hard in the offseason with a goal.”
On the girls side, illness took its toll on the Lady Spartans, as junior Michaela Reynolds (recovering from strep throat) and Jenna Stanbrough (flu) each raced despite being under the weather.
At times during the race, Reynolds — last year’s State champion — said she felt nauseous because of her medication, while Jenna — consistently the Spartans’ No. 3 runner — fell into the sixth spot with an 80th-place finish.
“It is frustrating when you know that if it did click on the same day, we were capable of probably winning,” Mark Stanbrough said. “The sickness just took us out of it. You can control injuries a little bit by backing them off in practice. But you can’t control getting sick the day before the State meet and you can’t control not recovering from being sick like Michaela.”
The race frustrated Reynolds, who hasn’t been at full health for the last three races, even though she finished 10th in a time of 16:01 on the 4K course.
“Ever since I got sick, I haven’t been performing as well as I know that I can,” she said. “Today was a little disappointing, but I just didn’t have as much as I usually do.
“I felt all right through the first mile, but then it just sort of hit me and I started struggling. It just wasn’t a good day.”
Senior Layne Moore finished as the top runner for the EHS girls, coming in eighth in a time of 15:57.
Moore ran with the lead pack for most of the race until Rim Rock’s signature King’s Bridge. At that point, Moore said “people started leaving me, and I just didn’t have enough to go with them.”
Moore said the race was disappointing for her after her win at Regionals a week earlier in which she defeated Seaman’s Sydney Messick, who actually won the girls title in a time of 15:16.
“Based on last week, I just think I psyched myself out a little bit,” Moore said. “I had run that race in my head so many times perfectly, and it just didn’t happen like that. It’s frustrating since it was my last cross country race. I don’t know if I wasn’t tough enough or what, but I may have wanted it too much.”
Mark Stanbrough said once Moore dropped back from the lead pack, as in any cross country race, it was too hard to make up that ground at the end.
“Once you lose contact ... you start to tighten up and it’s hard,” Mark Stanbrough said. “That’s what happened. She lost contact with the front pack and she tightened up. In the races that she has run well in, she’s been able to run relaxed.”
Heather Coe finished 22nd (16:35), Kelsey Camien came in 26th (16:40) and Abby Lake turned in a 47th-place showing (17:15) to complete the EHS scoring. Jenna Stanbrough finished 80th in a time of 18:30 while Liliana Morales crossed the line in 18:32 to finish 82nd.
The Lady Spartans finished with 96 points while Seaman finished second with 75 points. St. Thomas Aquinas won with 68 points to make it a sweep of the team titles.
“We came in here really positive and really excited, and things just didn’t go our way,” Moore said. “I know, for sure, that we wanted it more than anyone else. We just couldn’t act on that today. It just wasn’t our day.”
EHS gymnastics squad earns trip to State
With its third-place showing at Saturday’s Regional, the Emporia High gymnastics squad earned a place in next Saturday’s State meet to be held at Shawnee Mission East.
The Lady Spartans finished with 97.65 team points to place behind Hutchinson (99.125) and Newton (100.425). The top three teams advance to State.
“I am proud of these girls,” coach Barbara Clark said. “They have come together to work toward this Regional outing. They have worked hard.”
Tarra Nichols led the way for EHS with a fourth-place showing in the all-around competition with a score of 33.85.
Nichols and Stephanie Ternes each earned medals on the bars, with Nichols recording an season-high 8.95 to tie for third while Ternes, in her first competition back from an early-season concussion, placed sixth with a score of 8.0. Senior Libby England did not compete on the bars because of soreness from a car accident earlier on Friday.
The Spartans recorded no placers on vault, which Clark said was the team’s worst event.
“I think we struggled on vault,” Clark said. “I know we can do alot better on vault.”
Rounding out the Spartan medalists were Hayley Fry with a fourth-place showing on the beam (8.10) and Nichols with a fourth-place finish on the floor (8.7).
“This week we will try to clean up (the routines) and add some more difficulty to Stephanie Ternes’ routines,” Clark said. “There are other gymnasts’ routines that we could clean up for State competition.”