Big River State Meet Race Previews

Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the 2006 Missouri State High School Cross Country Meet. What follows are our race previews and predictions for each of the races on Saturday. As with our rankings these are just for fun and a way for those of you who may not be familiar with some of the teams or individuals in other Classes to know what to look for on Saturday. Enjoy.

CLASS 4 BOYS:

Many years this race is considered the highlight of the meet and though there has been much talk about the Class 3 boys this year the Class 4 race will still be full of excitement. The team battle, in particular, looks to be very close. For most of the fall the boys from Fort Zumwalt South have been considered heavy favorites to successfully defend their crown from a year ago. As the leaves have fallen so has the idea that a Bulldog title is a forgone conclusion. SLUH and Lee's Summit North have shown they may just have the depth to overtake FZS if they have big days from their #5 men. SLUH beat LSN by one point at Rim Rock so these teams are virtually even heading into Saturday. FZS is still the favorite though as they will have an incredibly low score through three with Kyle Rood, Pat Cole and Brandon Funderburk likely to total less than 25 points between them. Crunch the numbers and you'll find that LSN's 18 second spread at Sectionals bodes well for them as does SLUH's 43 second spread without two of their top five. The FZS spread was 1:27 but when you're number one man is Kyle Rood that is going to throw things off a bit. After all this tallying all we can say is that is why they run the race!

The race for the individual title seems to be a two-man showdown between CBC's Dan Quigley and Fort Zumwalt South's Kyle Rood. Quigley got the best of Rood in their only head-to-head battle this year when he bested the FZS Senior by ten seconds to capture the title at Rim Rock Farm. The State course, featuring a similar layout, would seem to again favor Quigley but the State race is not over until you cross the line. Anything can happen and look out for Rock Bridge 's Phillip King to spoil the party if anything happens to Quigley or Rood.

Our picks:

Teams: FZS, SLUH, LSN, CBC

Individual: Quigley

CLASS 4 GIRLS:

What makes the Class 4 Girls race so interesting to us is that the favorite, Jefferson City , has not raced head-to-head against Marquette or Liberty so it is very hard to guess how they will stack up against one another. This much is for sure; each squad has a frontrunner so much like the boys race it will come down to depth to determine who comes out on top. Each of these three squads won the three toughest Sectionals but consider this; Jeff City won with a 61 second spread and a fifth runner in 12 th place. Liberty had a 74 second spread and a fifth runner in 27 th . Marquette was 1:52 on the spread and also placed their fifth runner 27 th . When you look at those numbers it appears the Lady Jays may be hoisting the Trophy on their home turf.

The Individual race also has a clear favorite in Lee's Summit North's Ashley Mark. Mark has thrown down some incredibly fast times this year and has looked unbeatable down the stretch with convincing wins at District and Sectionals. On her heels will be Jeff City 's Asenath Naaman, Waynesville's Brandi Gervais and Marquette 's Hilary Orf.

Our Picks:

Teams: Jeff City , Liberty , Marquette , Summit

Individuals: Mark

CLASS 3 BOYS:

Will Potosi perfect score the team division? That seems to be the only question of the day team-wise. Whoever gets second should not feel bad either. Potosi is one of the top ten teams in the Country without question and no offense to the Class 4 teams but they would win that race handily. To answer the question posed earlier Lutheran South's Adam Behnke and Borgia's Andrew Tobben will likely prevent a sweep but their teams did not advance and thus they will not count in team scoring. Kearney 's Dalton Moberly and Phillip Palomino from West Plains may be the best hopes for breaking up the sweep. It will be close.

The individual race: Two words, the Joshes. Thebeau and Mathis have had two of the more stories careers in Missouri Distance Running History. Now, they both hope to close out their senior campaigns with a win and a course record. The problem is only one of them can win and though they both may go under the record at the end of the day only one can claim to be the fastest ever. Should be the race of the day.

Our Picks:

Teams: Potosi , West Plains, Carthage , Kearney

Individual: Thebeau

CLASS 3 GIRLS:

Though we called the Class 3 Boys race the race of the day for obvious reasons the girls team race in Class 3 is so close it might make a few coaches lose a few hairs or turn them gray or whatever it is that happens when you are really nervous. Ste. Geneveive, West Plains and Notre Dame De Sion will face off in a battle of titans. The girls from Ste. Gen are the defending Class 2 Champs from 2005 while the ladies from Notre Dame DS barely held off perennial power West Plains for the Class 3 Title a year ago. Our pre-season rankings had these three teams 3 rd , 4 th , and 5 th overall, all classes. We still think they might be that good and we'll know for sure when they duke it out on the grandest of stages. We did a lot of number-crunching and since all three teams have very tight packs we think it will be the Zizzer's firepower up front from likely winner Brittani Johnson that will give them the Championship.

As mentioned above the individual race should be Brittani Johnson v. the clock. This is not to take anything away from any of the other runners in the field, and there are some fine ones, but Johnson is at another level. Like Merideth Snow in last year's Class 4 race expect Johnson to take flight on a solo jaunt through the twists and turns on the Hough Park course and come away with another State Title.

Our Picks:

Teams: West Plains, Ste. Geneveive, Notre Dame De Sion, Rosati-Kain

Individual: Johnson

CLASSES 1 and 2:

Unfortunately, we cannot give quite as detailed an analysis for Classes 1 and 2 only because we are not as familiar with the teams. There are plenty of interesting stories though. The Class 2 boys race should be very close with St. Louis ' John Burroughs battling against traditional Class 2 power Herculaneum as well as Principia which bested Herky at Districts by one point. East Newton is in the mix as well but rumor has it that they are down a runner due to injury. The Class 2 Girls race features a Herculaneum squad that perfect-scored Districts. They are certainly the favorites to win the Title. Class 1 boys, at least from looking at District results, appears to be down to the defending champions from Saxony Lutheran vying to keep their Title by holding off Valley Park , College Heights Christian and Lone Jack. The Class 1 Girls race went to a tiebreaker last year with Penney winning on the strength of its sixth runner over College Heights Christian. Those same two squads should battle again and it may be just as close this year.

Our Picks:

Class 2 Boys- John Burroughs

Class 2 Girls- Herculaneum

Class 1 Boys- Valley Park

Class 1 Girls- College Heights Christian