Gracie Troester had been beating expectations all season, and she did it one more time at the Class 5 state cross country championship in Columbia Saturday. Ranked 11th going into the final race, she finished seventh, matching the best-ever placement for a Republic girl in cross country.
Troester won Republic’s only state medal, but Republic’s other two runners turned in good times. Senior Kristin Probst finished with a time of 19:30.5, placing 54th. That was only a second off her previous best time, set last weekend at the district meet in Nixa, and it was one minute, 33 seconds faster than her time on the same course last season, when she finished 113th at the state meet.
Republic’s only entry in the boys race, senior Brady Purcell, finished in 16:20.3, tying for 61st. His time was only three seconds off his previous best, and it was 38 seconds faster than last year’s performance on the same course at state.
Troester’s time of 18:15.7 was another school record. It was also more than two minutes faster than her time on the same course at the state meet last season.
“The past two times I’ve run on this course, I have not done well. So I was freaked out. I was like, ‘I really don’t want this to go as badly as it has other times. I just want to go out there and do what I know I can do.'” she said.
Troester tried to put those past performances out of her mind before the race, sticking to her pre-race routine. Through the first 4,000 meters, she was feeling good.
“We have 1,000 meters left to go, so that’s when everyone starts to kick it. I was like, ‘Oh, this hurts really bad,'” she said. One runner passed Troester, but she determined to maintain her position from that point on.
“After she passed me, she left, and I was like, ‘Okay, well, I can’t get her right now because I’m dying. So I just need to focus on people not passing me.’ So I held my lead, and then a girl tried to pass me at the end, but I… just took off as fast as possible.”
Troester’s seventh-place finish matches the result of Sherri Dunn in 1982, and Troester, a junior, accomplished it with one season remaining.
“It feels really great. I’m over-the-moon ecstatic about medaling here at State, and to do it as a junior so I might be able to come back and do it again next year, it’s a great accomplishment and I’m glad that I was able to do it,” she said.