JEFFERSON CITY – Dread it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same or should it be said: the North Platte girls’ track and field has.
The North Platte girls’ track and field team celebrates its third consecutive title at the Class 2 State Meet at Jefferson City High School on May 18.
It’s gotten to the point where it doesn’t matter how many players need to be replaced or how many even suit up, North Platte is going to be the last team standing. With only eight players making the trip to Jefferson City High School for the Class 2 State Championship on May 17 and 18, North Platte has inserted itself in its own history class with a dynastic finish to claim its third straight title.
“We had the same goal, we just had to take a little different path to get there this year,” North Platte sprinting coach Matt Keraus said. “It was still exciting, still a huge process that we had to go through week in and week out and especially a huge process for the whole weekend.”
North Platte junior Lindsay Ramsey outscored the rest of the field in the Class 2 State Meet.
Winning a championship is hard enough as it is, but the Lady Panthers have made it look easy en route to capturing each title differently in the quest of the three-peat. From outscoring the runner-up by 31 points in 2022 to needing to win the final race to pull out a three-point, first-place finish in 2023 to making the most of a small group for a 10-point margin to earn a third notch on the championship belt, North Platte continues to find ways to wear the golden crown that others tremble to behold.
“It’s kind of like playing cards, sometimes you get dealt a different hand and you still have the same end goal in mind,” North Platte long-distance coach Brendan Cary said. “You have to take care of the business; you have to figure out what you can do with what you have available to you each year and you have to make adjustments through the season.”
While there’s a lot of credit to give across the board for the recent display of dominance on the track – especially to the coaches – there’s no coincidence that this reign started after the arrival of Lindsay Ramsey. The junior sprinter singlehandedly scored 30 points in individual races alone and was on the third place 4x400, so she outscored every team in Class 2.
The runner-up Jefferson (Festus), which ended the weekend with 35 points opposed to North Platte’s 45, 36 of which Ramsey was responsible for. The first Lady Panthers’ title came when Ramsey was a freshman and with one more year of high school eligibility, it wouldn’t be a surprise if 2025 resulted in another title.
North Platte’s Morgan Ball hands the baton to Kylee Sipes in the third-place 4x400 at Jefferson City High School.
“I was just trying to do what I do, because just doing what I do should get me to win so I tried to be relaxed,” North Platte junior Lindsay Ramsey said. “I didn’t have a different mindset going in, but at the same, I had that thought the whole track season because I didn’t want to get myself nervous and not perform well.”
Ramsey not only won all three of her races in preliminaries, but she did that again in finals where she was faster with a record-breaking time in each one. She ran the 100 in 11.88 seconds, the 200 in 24.32 seconds and the 400 in 55.03 seconds.
Ramsey broke the Class 2 State record in the 200 and the 400, becoming the back-to-back champion in the 400. In the history of the KCI Conference, no sprinter has run a faster time in any of those three races.
“Getting those records was special not only for me, but the whole track program. That means a lot and it just shows how much work we’ve put into the whole season,” Ramsey said.
Ramsey had some help in the 4x400, being the anchor. Morgan Ball, Kylee Sipes and Graci Williams made up the rest of the all-state relay.
Chloe Heckman held down the fort in the long-distance, being responsible for nine points. She had a season-best time of 5:21.87 in the mile where she took fifth place, in addition to having a fourth place finish in the 2-mile in 11:55.35.
This was the first time junior Brianna DeBord didn’t finish with all-state honors but she joined Myla Bailey, Williams and Heckman on the 4x800 that missed that status by 1.3 seconds. They took ninth place in a season-best time of 10:26.59 joining the 2022 4x800 as the only other North Platte relay that didn’t finish top-8 at state out of 16 total since 2019.
North Platte sophomore Chloe Heckman brought home a pair of all-state medals on May 18.
“The 4x800 was competitive on Saturday morning; we ended up a little bit shy but ran great. We talked throughout the season that the end goal was to make our pathway through districts and sectionals to get to state and have a chance to get medals. I was proud of their efforts,” Cary said.
DeBord ran a season-best time of 2:29.88 in the 800, which put her in 11th place and 2.77 seconds too slow for all-state. Williams was in the same boat in the 400, crossing the finish line with a season-best time of 1:02.13 and missing out on finals by three spots and 1.48 seconds.
“Same thing with Bri(anna DeBord) and the 800; ran a very competitive race and the 800 and is one of the tougher races on that stage because it’s not lanes so you have a lot of people fighting for positional run at the same time,” Cary said.