Ranger girls cross country are state champions

By: 
Gray Hughes

The cold never bothered them anyway.

The Hill City Rangers girls cross country team overcame cold and snowy conditions at the state meet and won the Class A state championship at Hart Ranch Oct. 24.

In addition to that, freshman Abby Cutler was the individual champion for Class A.

“It’s pretty amazing,” said head coach Joe Noyes. “To do all the work and have it pay off this way, it doesn’t get much better.”

The Rangers scored 32 points, which put them over the top. Cutler finished first, Nancy Falkernburg Brown finished seventh, Jazzla Hutto finished 14th, Ryken Faleknburg Brown finished 17th, Jaelyn Peters finished 21st and Lillie Ross finished 26th.

Going into the state meet, Noyes said his goal was to keep everything consistent, which, for him, is always his biggest goal.

“If you look back at the last couple of years of us preparing for the state meet, this year’s preparation was the same as it has been in the past,” he said. “It’s just consistent. There’s a purpose to everything we do and why we do it. The big focus point of this year is rest. Rest, rest, rest. We were always looking to rest.”

And, as the forecast for the day of the state meet looked progressively colder and snowier, his message to his team was consistent, reiterating that all of the athletes will be going through the same thing.

No one is getting a break, he would tell his team.

“Our thing is just getting kids to buy in that hey, it’s 2020, it’s been a weird year, but we’re going to adapt to what we get and we’re going to overcome it. And that’s exactly what they did,” he said.

Cutler said the region meet was also cold, which prepared the team for the cold conditions at the state meet.

“We were just, like, ‘OK, let’s just go,’” Cutler said. “We were going to do whatever we needed to do, and we’ll run in whatever we need to run in just to get this meet done with and do what we want to do.”

For Cutler, the state meet was the culmination of six months of training.

She and her teammates were prepared, she said.

A big believer in “believing to achieve,” Cutler said she would write on her mirrors in her basement “I will win state” over and over again — all because she believed in herself.

The start of the race itself was fast, Cutler said. The girls were starting so fast that Cutler knew she just had to set her own pace and get through it. Eventually, she found herself at the front.

She said she gets tired doing dynamics and warm ups before the race and she wonders to herself, “how do I do this?”

But once the race starts, adrenaline takes over for Cutler, and she said she just goes.

Cutler said she was anticipating having someone in the front with her, but that wasn’t the case. She cruised in all by herself, becoming the individual state champion.

“It’s really awesome because I have been wanting this,” she said. “This has been one of my goals for, like, two years, and that’s all I’ve been thinking about. I want to be the state champ. So it’s pretty awesome to have achieved that goal and do what I know I can do.”

Junior Nancy Falkenburg Brown served as the oldest member on the state cross country team, and she said this was the first year she was the oldest person on the team competing at state.

She said her goal was to help direct people and keep them positive, especially in the cold weather. She was making sure all of the warm ups and dynamics were done, and she said she reminded her teammates to do the little things and stay positive.

“It’s very important (to make sure everyone is on the same page),” she said. “With cross country, every person matters as far as scoring goes, so it’s really important to make sure everyone knows they’re worth it and they’re worthy and  they count toward something very important.”

To do that, Falkenburg Brown said, the night before the meet, she sent her teammates songs and motivational videos. She said she made sure she was positive, smiled at her teammates and gave them all hugs and high fives.

She said, too, she told her teammates it was going to be a good day.

When she crossed the finish line, Falkenburg Brown said she felt pure relief. She said she was very proud of herself for her finish.

“Seventh is the highest I’ve ever scored at a state meet, so I was really happy, but mostly just felt relief,” she said. “(Cutler) and I both started crying after we crossed the finish line because the cross country season went by so fast and it was all over, but it was also a good feeling, too.”

For Noyes, as he started to see his runners cross the finish line, he said he knew they won.

Right away, he said he was hugging families and kids, telling them great job.

“The big thing, I think as a coach, is that you get so excited that all the work paid off,” he said. “All the time, all the practices, all the competition, it all paid off. And that was just such a relief of the emotions that it went the right way. Sometimes, with the weather and everything it could go the wrong way, but it didn’t. It went the right way. That’s what makes you feel so good as a coach.”

The boys cross country team also had a strong showing at the state meet.

Competing just after the girls team crossed the finish line, Luke Rupert finished 23rd and was a top 25 Class A all state finisher for the first time in his career. The second finisher was Leighton Aves, who finished 43rd. Both Rupert and Aves are freshmen in high school.

Right behind Aves was seventh grader Tate Grabow, who finished 54th in his first state meet.

“It feels really good,” Rupert said. “My first year at states, I was in seventh grade. I placed OK for my age, I guess, but I have been trying to work to place better and better each year.”

His progress at the state meet, he said, can be attributed to his physical growth. He said, too, that he had been working hard all year — logging over 700 miles of running since May 1.

He said more boys should join cross country.

“It’s fun,” he said. “You get to work hard, you get to win, and winning feels good. Plus, you make a lot of friends.”

Aves said competing at the state meet felt very good.

He said he just missed out on running in it last year, so making it this year felt pretty good, he said.

The meet was a lot bigger than he expected, but he said he did better than he was expecting.

Aves agreed with Rupert that more boys should come out for cross country.

“Cross country is a fun sport,” Aves said. “You have to put in a lot of hard work, but if you put in the hard work then you can win and you can be running at states.”

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