KHS girls take 4th, boys 11th at pre-state XC meet

Kerri Lafferty saw one part of Kingfisher’s numbers go down last week.

Now she wants to see the other part be lower as well.

The KHS girls took fourth place Saturday at the 2022 Edmond Pre-State Cross Country Meet at Santa Fe High School.

The meet is held on the same course where the state meet will be contested in a month.

Kingfisher totaled 139 points to place behind Cache (65), Anadarko (69) and Byng (107) in the 14--team field.

“On paper, I wasn’t overly pleased with our placings,” admitted Lafferty.

“However, our individual times were pretty good. I believe almost all the girls set a personal record and dropped some significant time.”

The team was led by junior Chesni Newkirk, who was 22nd out of 126 runners.

With some runners not being attached to full teams, Newkirk’s place was 18th among those whose finishes counted toward team totals.

She ran the 3,200 meter course in 13:28.39.

Two spots behind her was fellow junior Peyton Walker, who finished in 13:32.17.

“Peyton had a great race,” said Lafferty of Walker, who didn’t run her freshman and sophomore seasons.

Harper Evans took 29th (24th) in 13:44.32 and Terry Ann McCully 38th (33rd) in 14:04.82.

Kingfisher’s scoring was rounded out by junior Emmy Lunsford, who was 50th (44th) in 14:33.46.

“We are improving with each race, but we really need to run faster in order to compete at state,” Lafferty said.

“I’m confident we will be running our best by the end of October.”

The team was without freshman Scout Snodgrass, who was held out of the race after falling ill the week before at Hennessey.

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The KHS boys took 11th out of 16 teams in their 5 kilometer race.

All six Yellowjackets set new PRs in the process.

“I’m super proud of them,” Lafferty said. “They just keep getting better with each meet.”

Kingfisher scored 318 points in finishing just out of the top-10.

Cache won the meet with just 54 while Byng was a distant runner-up with 116 points.

Sophomore Coleman Gilles paced KHS with a 51st (47th) place finish out of 161 runners.

He crossed the line in 19:34.96.

Rhett Schlegel was 65th (58th) in 20:05.39, Wyatt Long 67th (60th) in 20:14.42 and Alezandro Cuellar 79th (71st) in 20:32.09.

All three runners are freshmen.

Sophomore Conner Askey was 96th (82nd) in 21:00.34 and Raiden Clark 126th (96th) in 22:17.89.

“It’s exciting to see them run well because they work so hard in practice everyday,” Lafferty said.