Senior star Thomas Garrett and the Park Hill South cross country teams blazed through the Greater KC Suburban Red Division conference championships held at Staley High School on Oct. 18 as the Panthers ended several conference title droughts.
Garrett became the first individual conference champion since 2018, leading the Panthers’ boys to earn their first team championship in 13 years. The Park Hill South girls also claimed the conference title, their first since 2020.
Despite the muggy and humid conditions, Garrett and the boys team dethroned Liberty, who had won the individual and team titles each of the last three years since joining the same conference. South defeated St. Joseph Central 23-59 for the team title while Liberty finished third (68), Park Hill fourth (103), Oak Park sixth (116) and North Kansas City seventh (167).
“It’s very affirming for what we’ve been building towards,” South’s head boys coach Zachary Wiemers said. “It’s fun to go out there and not only win, but do it with a little bit of style, having five in the top eight.”
Garrett began the 5,000-meter race in a close competition with Colin McKenna of Liberty, but Garrett gained a slight advantage by the midway point before ending 10 seconds ahead of the runner-up. Garret finished the course in 16 minutes, 24.44 seconds while McKenna trailed behind at 16:34.33.
“I think it means quite a bit,” Wiemers said of Garrett, who previously finished fourth in conference as a freshman and third as a sophomore and junior. “It’s been a rough couple of seasons battling off injuries and coming back from good races and bad races. I think it’s fun to come here when the team needed him to win, he stepped up and got the job done.”
Garrett’s title ended a seven-year drought since Bret Worley won the program’s last individual championship. Garrett’s conference title comes after winning the 1,600-meter conference run in track the past two years and a fifth-place medal at state last spring.
“I just felt satisfaction,” Garrett said. “It’s been a hard season to get back from injuries. I think just winning and getting the job done is great progress; I’m proud of it.”
The race did not go as Garrett had expected. The conditions played a role in a challenging run, but the senior pulled himself through the difficult moments.
“No matter however you strategize, it’s going to be really hard,” Garrett said. “You just have to realize that and tell yourself that you can get through it and it kind of helped me to kind of talk myself into the race and unlock what I needed to unlock to win.”
Park Hill South sophomore runs towards the finish line to secure the conference championship.
Each of the Panthers’ conference-winning runners also earned all-conference medals, including seniors Cole James (3rd overall; 16:54.91), Grant Windmeyer (5th; 17:14.75), David Meyer (6th; 17:16.09), Simon Ketter (8th; 17:25.42), junior Eli Hurst (12th; 17:55.13) and sophomore Max Gogan (14th; 18:04.79). Wiemers was impressed with the way his team started, got a little spread out in the middle but finished strong to clinch the title.
The girls’ team championship was less expected, but they entered the meet knowing they had a chance. They had several runners take on larger roles to help win their first conference title in five years.
Liberty had two of the top three finishes, but Park Hill South did just enough damage elsewhere to dethrone the defending champions 36-44. St. Joseph Central followed in fourth (49) while Park Hill took fourth (92) and Oak Park fifth (114).
Park Hill South senior Madilynn Conklin finished as the conference runner-up for the second straight year, but helped South win their first conference title since 2020.
The Panthers had seven runners in the top seven, led by senior conference runner-up Madilynn Conklin (20:09.65). The Panthers also got crucial runs from senior Zoe Flook (5th; 21:32.51), freshman Morgan Johnson (6th; 22:12.33), senior Lauren Bender (7th; 22:15.56) — who all earned all-conference — while a 17th-place finish from Kayla Marshall (23:23.16) helped seal the title.
“Happy for them because their are so many seniors on both of our teams, but its fun for them to win along with the boys too to make it a little sweeter,” head girls coach Pam Jurgensmeyer said.
Park Hill also managed to get two all-conference runners. Sophomore Krischen Kennaley finished 10th in the girls race at 22:50.60 while junior Colton Hardy finished 11th in the boys race at 17:43.26.
The Panthers now prepare for the Class 5 District 4 meet on Nov. 1 at Lee’s Summit North High School. Both the boys and girls teams have hope of making it through to the state tournament.
Conklin leads the girls team as a three-time all-state runner, but has her eyes set on a fourth state medal and breaking her own school record before leaving to run at Missouri State University.
“Ideally, it would be the best if the team could make it through,” Jurgensmeyer said. “If they can race like they did today, they could do it.”