Bison runners seek success at state cross-country meet

Thursday, October 20, 2011
Steve Kodad/McCook Daily Gazette McCook High School will send a strong contingent to the 2011 Nebraska Class B State Cross-Country Championships at the Kearney Country Club Friday afternoon. The Bison athletes headed to state include, left to right, front row: Trevor Pate. Back row: Emily Tolliver, Veronica Bair, Abi Mohr, Kelsey Kilpatrick, Molly Sughroue, EmIlyne Sides and Andrea Miller.

McCook High School's girls cross-country team may have surprised head coach Tom Sughroue with their effort at the Class B-4 District meet Oct. 13 in Ogallala.

The surprise was a young McCook team battling to finish second in a tight team race at the district meet and earn a berth in the Class B state meet. The Bison girls qualified for the state meet Friday, Oct. 21, at the Kearney Country Club.

Trevor Pate also will represent the Bison boys at the state competition. Pate finished 10th in the B-4 District meet with a personal-best effort.

The Class B girls race is set to open at 2:30 p.m., with the Class B boys division taking off at 3:30 p.m.

Young squad members step up

With several state meet veterans returning, Coach Sughroue figured to have another strong Bison girls team this fall. But Emilyne Nichols was forced to sit out the season after suffering a foot injury last summer. Veronica Bair also suffered an injury during the season, and Bair could not finish among the top runners at the district meet.

But some of the younger runners stepped up, helping the McCook girls secure a state meet berth for the fourth straight year.

"It's a great tribute to the ladies that are running for us to qualify," Sughroue said. "If you would have asked me prior to the season if we were going to qualify, I would have told you we would have a hard time not qualifying with the runners we had returning.

"With some of the circumstances that happened before the season and during the season, it became quite a challenge for us as a girls team to qualify. But it's a great tribute to the ladies that ran for them to qualify, because they put in a lot of effort just to get to that point. I'm very proud of them for that effort."

State meet veterans

The Bison leaders are a pair of state meet veterans in Emily Tolliver (the lone senior on the team) and Molly Sughroue. The McCook coach hopes both Tolliver and Sughroue can run among the leaders and contend for medalist honors by finishing in the top 15 in the final individual Class B standings. Sughroue, a sophomore, finished fifth at districts with a time of 15 minutes, 19.9 seconds over the 4,000-meter (2.6-mile) course. Tolliver ran eighth at 15:51.3.

Tolliver will compete at state for the fourth straight year.

The rest of the Bison state meet team includes Abi Mohr, EmIlene Sides, Andrea Miller and Kelsey Kilpatrick. Even though Bair competed at districts, Coach Sughroue decided to sit Veronica out at state due to her injury.

Coach Sughroue hopes his squad can place in the top eight in the final Class B team standings at state. He expects Lincoln Pius X, Seward, Lexington and York to be among the top teams in the Class B girls division.

The Bison coach also has a goal for his younger squad members to break the 20-minute barrier at state.

"All of them under 20 minutes would be a great accomplishment -- that's what I hope to see as a team," Sughroue said.

Steady improvement

Trevor Pate was the lone McCook boy to qualify for state as the Bison finished fifth in the B-4 District final team standings.

Pate burst onto the state running scene when he hit a personal-best time and placed in the boys 1,600-meter run at last year's state meet. He continued that improvement through the cross-country season this fall, hitting a career-best time of 17 minutes, 14.5 seconds over the 5,000-meter (3.1-mile) district meet course in Ogallala last week.

"Trevor is going to do quite well," Coach Sughroue said. "He proved last spring (in track and field) that as the season progresses he gets better. This fall it's been very much that way for him. He started out running mid-18s, low 18s, and progressively has gotten faster throughout the season."

Sughroue said Pate battled an injury midway through the season, and Trevor actually took time off from competition trying to heal up. That strategy obviously worked.

"Toward the end of the season he is turning it loose a little more, ran career best 17:14 at districts, which is a very good time. If he had been in any other district besides ours he would have been in top four."

Pate, a junior, has the 20th fastest time of the individual state qualifiers in the Class B boys state meet field. Sughroue hopes Pate can contend for a state medal.

"He has the potential to be in top 15," Sughroue said. "That would be a great accomplishment for him to go down there and bring home a medal -- just proving to himself that he can do it, and to a lot of others. He's a great competitor."

Area qualifiers

Several Gazette area athletes will compete in the Class D division at state Friday.

Two area teams qualified in the Class D boys division. Dundy County-Stratton finished second and the Eustis-Farnam/Medicine Valley co-op team placed third in the D-5 District meet at Grant last Thursday.

The DundyCounty-Stratton qualifying team included Levi Swenson, Jeremy Castillo, Tyler Freeland, Cade Duvel, Benjamin Fox and Christian Hughes. Swenson led the Tigers with a fourth-place finish fourth at districts with a time of 18:16.3 over 5,000 meters (3.1 miles).

The E-F/Med Valley co-op state qualifiers included David Nutt, Rodger Farr, Connor Russell, Jacob Brennemann, Tanner Mickelsen and Thomas Foster.

Nutt and Farr placed fifth and sixth, respectively, at districts.

Maywood's Quinton Phillips also qualified for state with his 10th-place effort at the D-5 District.

While no area girls teams qualified for state out of the D-5 District, several individuals earned trips to state.

Justine Stone of Maywood finished fourth with a time of 16 minutes, 35.8 seconds over the 4,000-meter (2.6-mile) layout at the Grant Golf Course. Cassa McConville of Southwest also qualified by placing seventh at districts with a time of 17:18.2, and Keely Confer of DCS was 10th at districts at 17:49.8.

The Class D girls race is set to begin Friday at 2 p.m., with the Class D boys hitting the starting line at 3 p.m.

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