State Cross Country results

Park Hill's Kainen Utt came in 46th place at the Class 4 Missouri state cross country meet over the weekend with a time of 16:58. Park Hill South's Gus Whitman finished 97th while Tucker Melles sprained an ankle earlier in the week which prevented him from finishing the race.

FALL PREVIEW: Park Hill Boys Cross Country

Despite losing their two top runners to graduation from a year ago, Park Hill boys cross country returns the rest of their varsity team in 2012 for what could be one of the more unified groups the Trojans have seen in recent years. Hoping to lead a team that finished in third place at conference and fourth place at sectionals last year are seniors Kainen Utt, Riley Fahrenholz, Nate Thomas, and Daniel Chen.

While the Trojans qualified as a team for sectionals last year, Utt returns as the only individual qualifier and has so far emerged as Park Hill’s number one runner. Head coach Jon Davis says Utt is ready to take on the role both in terms of performance and leadership.

“Cainen has been a sectional qualifier the last two years,” Davis said. “He’s really looking forward to this year and I think he’s got a good shot at getting pretty far as well. He does a good job of leading guys by doing the right things and acting the right way. He’ll be fine because he knows he’s the number one guy and has worked really hard to earn it.”

Davis says last year there was a drop-off between his top two runners and the rest of the team, but in 2012 he believes the team is a more cohesive group that can run together and still see success.

“As long as they’re running towards the front of the pack, and not the middle or back, running together is always positive,” Davis said. “We’ve got a number one in Kainen, but the two, three, and four guys won’t be as far back as they have in the past.”

Junior James Adams and sophomore Hanok Tekle return as seasoned varsity runners who were part of last year’s sectional qualifying team. Sophomores Noah and Carter Barajas along with Cade Kellem will compete for some of the final spots on varsity, representing just a portion of the underclassmen which make up a majority of the team overall.

“What I’ve noticed this year is we have a smaller number of runners, but we have more kids that really want to do this. They really want to run, so I like the group we have,” Davis said. “I think 21 of our 31 guys are freshmen or sophomores so the older guys who do things right will help them.”

Lee’s Summit West and St. Joe Central will be the teams to beat at the conference meet, but Park Hill thinks they can give them some tough competition. While the Trojans start their season at the Liberty Invitational, they believe they’ll have a good idea of their potential after Week Three when they return from Blue Springs and the Wildcat Invitational.

BOYS CROSS COUNTRY PREVIEW: Park Hill has core group returning

The 2010 campaign for the Park Hill boys cross country team produced mixed results for the Trojans. With their top two runners returning, a handful of guys hoping to fill in behind them, and a pretty hefty group of freshmen looking to try their athleticism in the sport, they'll look to move the team up a few places in the 2011 rankings.

"We did ok last year, we got a few guys coming back from our varsity," head coach Jon Davis said.

As young runners last year, sectional qualifiers senior Nathan Huffer and junior Kainen Utt will be looked to now to lead the pack for Park Hill. Huffer had several good outings last seaon including his 24th place finish at the Rim Rock invitational out of 155 runners and his sectional-qualifying performance in the district meet where he finished 19th out of 72 runners. Utt's best performance also came at districts when he was just a few seconds behind Huffer at 31st place. Senior Jon Steven, juniors Riley Fahrenholtz and Joey Walton, and James Adams will round out the top runners for Park Hill early in the season.

"We have a core group of guys that do things right," Davis said. "We need to have some early success for our kids to gain confidence and know that we can run with anybody in the conference or district. Our keys will be to get our kids to train and race together."

This season, Park Hill has a large freshman group of runners out for the team and Davis is looking for them to step up as well. While it's too early to tell who those runners will be, he's optimistic about the upcoming season.

"Last year we had a lot of young guys on varsity where it was their first time, so we hope they're able to improve and compete even more this year while also adding some guys," Davis said.

In addition to the big Liberty Invitational on September 3rd that kicks off the season each year, Park Hill's biggest and most telling meets will be the Rim Rock Classic and KC Metro meets which are on back to back weekends September 24th and October 1st.