COFFEYVILLE — Establishing dominance, the Chanute Blue Comets earned a team title while two racers claimed titles individually at the SEK League Cross Country Championships on Thursday.
Chanute’s boys won their fourth straight SEK League title, with Tucker Applegate, Jaron Powers, Easton Colborn and Tyler Rowden finishing first through fourth, respectively.
“It’s a really special group and I’m pretty spoiled as a coach right now,” Chanute head coach Brett Rinehart said. “These kids have bought into putting the work in during the summer. They were here every morning. I have to slow them down some days because they’re always running hard. I had to tell them to put easy miles in to let them recover. And it’s paid off. They’re so motivated and dedicated.”
Laney Hillmon of Chanute also won the league crown in the girls race, posting a time of 22:16.
“She ran a great race,” Rinehart said. “We got a great preview last week at Independence where most of the league schools were at. We got to see where she was at after not seeing our league schools as much as we usually do. She pulled away late in that meet, so our strategy was the same — put the pressure on mid-race. That’s exactly what she did. She really put on a surge and made a big gap. She didn’t have to look back from there.”
Applegate won his second league title individually with a time of 16:53 in the boys’ race.
“It was a super strong run,” Rinehart said. “In the last mile, the footing is really bad on the course but he just powered through it. To get under 17 minutes was pretty awesome. He’s just a really strong runner.”
Powers, last year’s league champion, finished in second (17:15). Colborn was third (17:21) while Rowden was fourth (17:37).
“We knew we were in a really good place to run well at league. At the same time, we wanted to save our legs to give it a good run at regionals and state,” Rinehart said. “We wanted the guys to be careful with their footing and not do anything crazy. We wanted to do what we needed to do to win and move on to the next week with no issues. They did a good job of that.”
Other boys’ runners for Chanute included Joshua Schoenhofer placing 11th (19:06), Mason Greve 21st (20:52) and Thien Ma 22nd (20:54).
“We all know about the top four kids, but our five and six and the other guys are all working hard,” Rinehart said. “They’re just as important in getting us that finish. They’ve all had an amazing impact.”
In the girls’ race, Jarynn Hockett took fourth place (23:28).
“She’s been battling some severe shin splits the past month, but she shows up when it counts,” Rinehart said. “She had a great race at Independence, then on Thursday, she put herself in a great position. Our goal for her was to get in the top 10 and she worked her way into the top five. I was super proud of how she ran. She’s a really tough kid.”
Chanute’s 20 points in the boys race easily cleared the field. Pittsburg was second (64), followed by Labette County (79), Fort Scott (86), Coffeyville (118) and Independence (138).
“I’m really happy for them,” Rinehart said. “They’ve put in so much work. They’re extremely coachable. When you have four boys that are that competitive and you ask them to run as a pack, it’s hard to do. It’s hard to conserve and not go all-out until you have to. They’re true team players. A lot of people don’t view cross country as a team sport. But it truly is when you want to win league titles and have a shot at state.”
Fort Scott won the girls’ team title with 29 points, followed by Labette County (47), Pittsburg (53) and Independence (94).
Up next
Chanute heads to the KSHSAA 4A Regional race in Neodesha on Saturday.
“We view regionals as very similar to league with the teams coming,” Rinehart said. “If we have a similar strategy and we’re conservative but competitive, we can get the regional title and preserve ourselves for the state meet. I think we have a great shot at a podium finish at state — it won’t be easy, but we’ve got a shot.”
