OSSAA State Cross Country Meet Results
All fall, runners from the three Lawton Public Schools (LPS) high schools have been training for one thing, the OSSAA State Cross Country race, and for two LPS student-athletes, all the that training paid off when they earned their coveted spot in the race.
MacArthur High School (MHS) junior Emma Kirby and Lawton High School (LHS) senior Phait Blackwelder were the two student-athletes from all of LPS to qualify for the annual state cross country meet, which was held at Edmond Santa Fe High School on Nov. 2.
The two earned their spots in the race by how they finished at Regionals. Kirby led the Highlander squad to a 10th place finish as a team, placing 17th as an individual with a time of 21:45.0. Freshman Allena Cotanny and junior Madalyn Strickland were the other two MHS runners in the top-60 individually. Additionally, LHS’s top female runner was sophomore Grace Dermody in 66th place with a time of 24:37.3; the Wolverines finished 15th as a team.
In the boys’ Regional, MacArthur finished in 12th and Lawton High finished 14th in the team standings. Blackwelder finished in 35th place with a time of 18:10.1, just a few spots ahead of MHS’s top male finisher, Trevin Shelton (10), who finished 39th with a time of 18:21.5. Wolverine freshman Levi James was the only other LPS runner in the top-50, coming in 49th with a time of 18:52.4.
Additionally, the Eisenhower High School (Eagles) just missed out on having representatives at State. The girls finished 11th as a team led by the 2-time LPS City Champion Danielle Tomah (11) in 44th with a time of 21:31.7. The IKE boys came in 12th with two runners finishing inside the top-70 individually, juniors Garrett Roberts and Parker Polzin.
At State, Kirby represented the Highlanders well, finishing in 43rd place with a time of 22:00.34 in the 5A girls’ 5K race; Bishop Kelly’s Gwyneth Myers paced the field with a time of 18:30.96. In the 5A boys’ 5K race, Blackwelder finished just outside of the top-60 finishers with a time of 17:47.44; Tesfaye Lire from Guymon won the race with a time of 15:41.81. Bishop Kelly won both team titles for the boys and girls.
Now that cross country season has finished, LPS runners will start training to compete in the spring track and field season, in which we expect our student-athletes to be very competitive and bring home a few State Championships.