Blue Valley Southwest’s boys cross country team won the Kansas Class 5A state championship this past weekend for the first time in the school’s history.
The upshot: The Timberwolves also became the first public school team to win the 5A boys title in the last 15 years.
- Emporia High School won the title in 2007 before two private schools — Bishop Carroll in Wichita and St. Thomas Aquinas in Overland Park — began a run of shared dominance over the next decade and a half.
- Southwest’s win marked the end of an eight-year run of consecutive state titles for Aquinas. (The Saints took home the Kansas Class 5A state title for girls volleyball over the same weekend.)
The recap: At the Class 5A meet on Saturday, Oct. 29, at Rim Rock Farm in Lawrence, Southwest’s boys’ team placed first with 67 points, according to records maintained by the Kansas State High School Activities Association.
- Junior Thomas Caul edged out Topeka West senior Lenny Njoroge by four-hundredths of a second to take third place individually with a time of 15:51.82.
- Senior Micah Paschke came in next for the Timberwolves taking ninth overall by running the 3.1-mile long course in 16:09.71.
- Southwest junior Crew Buehler took 14th with a time of 16:23.19, while sophomore Canyon Buehler placed 18th at 16:32.25.
What they’re saying: Coach Aaron Ballew said after almost winning the state title five different times, four for cross country and one for track, in previous years, it was a relief to see his team earn the accomplishment.
- “When I got to experience [the win] with the athletes and send out the message to them that we won and began celebrating together, that’s when it turned into a lot more joy,” he said.
- This win felt extra special, Ballew said, because he had been on the Gardner Ederton High School cross country team as a student in 2003 when that school won a state title.
Key quote: “This group of boys that we had is one of the hardest working groups I know I’ve ever worked with,” Ballew said. “It wasn’t one of them working hard and a bunch of kids trying to hang. It was every single one of them pushing each other every day.”
Other Johnson County cross country successes
Blue Valley is not the only school district to win it big this year in cross country.
- The Shawnee Mission East’s boys cross country team won this year’s Kansas Class 6A state championship, as well.
- The Lancers boys’ squad won its first state title in 55 years with senior Wyatt Haughton taking home the individual title.
- SM East’s girls’ cross country team placed second in Class 6A, as well.
