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Super sophomore: Beshore collects fifth straight gold medal as NHS XC runs in Springfield
Nevada High School sophomore Calli Beshore can’t be stopped, as evidenced by her fifth consecutive first-place finish achieved at Tuesday’s Springfield Underground Irish Invitational.
The Carl Junction boys and girls captured first-place finishes at the 25-team event, hosted by Springfield Catholic, while the Nevada boys placed sixth, and the NHS girls, seventh.
“This meet had some of the biggest schools from both southwest Missouri and the Ozark area,” noted second-year Nevada XC coach, Ryan Watts.
Watts said he was pleased with his squad’s performance on rugged terrain.
“There wasn’t any part of it that was flat,” said Watts. “You were either going up, or going down. This is good practice for the state (meet) course, which is full of hills.”
Watts said the conditions were made more difficult by fresh rainfall.
“The rain makes it harder to run, but also was something I had hoped we would see before championship meets,” said Watts. “So in case it did rain at one of those meets, we wouldn’t be facing it for the first time.”
A quintet of Nevada High student-athletes medaled: Beshore and junior Amara Pippin in the girls varsity 5K, and Will Johnson, Luke Sudkamp, and Devin McHugh in the boys varsity 5K.
“Most of our runners ran near their best or surpassed their best time of the season,” said Watts. Which, in those kinds of conditions doesn’t typically happen; so seeing that speaks to how focused they were to run well.”
Watts said no one was even close to Beshore when she crossed the finish line.
“Calli ran her best time ever by about half a second (19:36.18),” he said. “She was 50 yards ahead of the second-place finisher. Running on a hilly course in the rain lets us know that in better conditions, with someone to push her, she would have been much faster!”
— NHS girls results —
• Calli Beshore, first-place; Amara Pippin, 16th; Patience Lockhart, 31st; Zoie Farmer, 47th; Heaven Farmer, 50th; Haleigh Leisure, 55th; Amanda Blystone, 56th.
— NHS boys results —
• Will Johnson, 16th; Luke Sudkamp, 24th; Devin McHugh, 32nd; Trenton Ellis, 37th; Bronson Smith, 44th; Jayden Ast, 51st; Charles Morton, 55th.
— NHS JV girls —
• Katlyn Dunfield, 20th; Chantel Reiff, 26th; Jayden Chei, 31st.
— NHS JV boys —
• Colson Fisher, 18th; Caleb Theis, 20th; Clay Landoll, 35th; Cayden Sanderson, 37th; Braden Ast, 39th; Gabe Barnes, 42nd; Corey Klotz, 43rd; Joe Hendrix, 47th; Jerron Thorton, 50th.
— NMS girls —
• Avery Morris, eighth-place; Brooklyn Kutina-Smith, 13th; Lilly Hart, 16th; Allie Rains, 18th; Ashlynd Taylor, 19th; Grace Barnes, 24th; Bailey Ast, 45th; Malynn Pippin, 55th; Christina Kane, 63rd; Teresa Dawn, 70th; Ashley Mather, 88th; Olivia Creech, 92nd.
— NMS boys —
• Mokey Dawn, 53rd; Eli Mosher,72nd; Nate Taylor, 76th; Jamin Mosher, 91st; Tanner Klotz, 98th; Michael Tresse, 105th; Ethan McGinnis, 154th.
Up next
Nevada is idle until Thursday, when they’re slated to compete in the El Dorado Springs Invitational.
“We are now starting a very difficult time in our training,” said Watts.
“We’re working on speed specific training — hill work, sharp turning in-course work, as well as trying to get whatever aerobic edge we can here in the final third of the season.
“The way we ran Tuesday was a great way to end the regular season and set us up well to prepare for conference, districts and state.”