There were five races beginning with the Junior Varsity Boys, then followed by the Varsity Girls, Varsity Boys, and finally Junior Varsity Girls and Freshmen Boys racing simultaneously.
For the JV Boys, there were five runners representing Excelsior Springs and 27 runners in all. Bailey Dolata led the pack and had a tremendous first place finish. He was followed to the finish by teammates Logan Stock, Seth Edwards, Lane Rogers, and Brent "Stellar" Shelor. Every one of them placed in the top 11 and earned medals. As a team, they placed 1st with 36 points ahead of Lawson with 41 points and Chillicothe with 87 points.
Three girls ran for the Tigers Varsity squad. It would be Dani Pair's first race on Varsity and she had indicated that her ankle was feeling fine since twisting it at Smithville. She led the race for the first two miles, but it was noticed that steep inclines slowed her down and may have causing pain in her ankle. On those hills another racer would pass her, but Dani would regain her lead on level ground. After "Big Mama" she had fallen back to eighth place and remained their for the rest of the race. One of the girls that passed her was teammate, Micaela Lynch. Micaela was running her fourth and final race on this course, so for her it was old hat. She placed sixth. Katelen Moerschel ran her first 5k race at Krug Park and finished 13th. There were 42 girls running the Varsity race. All three Excelsior girls earned medals.
The Varsity Boys race was as exciting as it gets. Christian Carter led the way for the first 2.5 miles, but a LeBlond runner was right on his tail the entire time. The LeBlond runner managed to get around Christian, yet he would not let him get too far ahead. The last half mile was an intense footrace over sloping and curving terrain until the very end. It would come down to the wire, but the LeBlond runner had a slight lead that he maintained until the finish line where he came in less than two seconds ahead of Christian. Christian finished 2nd out of 75 runners and earned a medal. Ben Hartwig managed to place in the top 50% of the group. At the first mile he was 34th, yet he finished 27th. He did a great job picking his competition off one-by-one, but it wasn't enough to earn a medal since only the top 20 were awarded.
Freshmen Boys and Junior Varsity Girls were the last races and they were run simultaneously. The distance of their race was only run 4k or 2.5 miles. There weren't any Freshmen Boys for Excelsior since Lane Rogers ran JV. There were three girls representing Excelsior, though, and 20 total in the race. The Tigers were April and Ali Stodgel, plus Autumn Summers. All three had strong races with their fastest per mile times of the season. April and Ali earned medals for their top 15 finishes.
In summary, 13 Tigers ran, 11 earned medals, eight placed in the top 10 of their respective races, one individual placed 1st as did the JV Boys team. Even though there were no personal records at the 5k distance, everybody recorded their best time for the course. Oh, and one new nickname was created when Brent was called up for his medal. He was announced as Brent "Stellar" so he has a new name to live up to!