A record five Republic cross country runners competed at the state meet in Columbia Friday. Running in the Class 5 races, none of Republic’s competitors finished in the top 25 to bring home a medal. But Gracie Troester’s performance was the best of any freshman in the Class 5 girls race.
Four girls competed for Republic, and Troester was the top finisher among them, coming in at 32nd with her best time ever, 19:14.50. Of the 27 freshmen competing Friday, Troester’s time was the fastest by more than six seconds.
Miha Nambara was 67th (See our related article here.), Misora Nambara was 116th, and Kristin Probst finished 138th in the field of more than 160.
Ethan Haynes was first up, as the only Republic runner in the boys race. He said the experience was different from other competitions because “it was complete adrenaline the whole time. The whole time, I felt compelled to run faster than ever. I felt like I never slowed down at all.”
Haynes gained nearly 10 spots over the last half of the race, finishing 79th overall in a very fast race that featured two runners with sub-15:00 times.
“Everyone just pulled me with them. I got pinned down a little bit at the start, but the whole time I was just getting moved to go faster and faster,” Haynes said. “[I’ll remember] the amount of people cheering. There’s so many people cheering the entire time, so that was cool.”
Photos by David Brazeal
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