The treat for a successful trip to Joplin? A stop at Braum’s for hamburgers and ice cream for the Park Hill cross country team.
On Saturday, Sept. 21, the Trojans took part in the Missouri Southern Stampede and had a pair of loft accomplishments during the day.
Isaiah Phillips took second place overall and the team took third place, winning a tiebreaker with Kiefer, Okla. Kearney won the meet and Madill, Okla., took second in the Gold division.
The senior broke his personal best with ease during the 5K race, running 16:09.99, coming in second behind El Dorado Springs’ Daelen Ackley, who ran 15:43.90.
Phillips had ran this course before but never had the success like this. As recently as last week he ran 17:20 but dropped more than a minute and his best time ever was 16:57.
He noted during the race, he got a fist bump from Kearney’s Tyler Pedee at a mile ½ mark and that helped spark him the rest of the way.
“It is usually incredibly hot here so the rain and the clouds helped so much,” Phillips said. “The competition was super fun. The one guy (Ackley), I don’t know where he came from. Most of the race, the runner that was third really helped me and he said ‘we got this’ and that was such a big boost and it just carried me.”
CODY THORN/Citizen photo
Park Hill’s Isaiah Phillips runs toward the finish line of the Missouri Southern Stampede on Saturday, Sept. 21 in Joplin. Phillips took second and set a new personal record with a time of 16:09.99.
There were more than 20 teams and 204 runners in the smaller of the two divisions at the 30th annual event.
Fellow senior Ryan Fette joined Phillips on the medal stand, taking 17th place, running a new personal record of 17:12.40.
In fact, the top eight runners for Park Hill all finished in less than 19 minutes, a first for this season.
“We were hoping to see some new PRs (personal records) from those that have been running for a few years,” Park Hill coach John Milholland said. “We knew this was a fast course. We also knew about some weather we didn’t get but the cool weather was great to run in. I told the kids to stay together and then take off after that.
‘We did a lot better than I expected.”
Lee’s Summit North Invitational
Park Hill South boys ran some JV runners and the girls brought the varsity team to the Kris Solsberg Invitational held on Saturday, Sept. 21 at Lee’s Summit North High School.
The Panthers had three runners medal, led by Andrew Gordon, who took eighth. Sam Chase was 11th and Cole Simmons took 12th place. The team was second overall.
On the girls side, Skyelar Nelson led the Panthers by placing 14th, followed by Ella Conklin in 17th and Marisa Garcia in 24th place.
As a team, the Panthers placed fourth with 108 points. Blue Springs South (37), Staley (71) and Blue Springs (76) finished ahead of Park Hill South.
Cameron Invitational
North Platte finished second in the boys team standings during the Cameron Invitational on Tuesday, Sept. 17.
The Panthers had 82 points and held off the host Dragons by 17 for second. Lexington easily won the team title with 23 points.
Freshman Josh Schaffart was the first Panther to finish, taking 11th place. Danny Fleshman was 17th.
The Panthers had only two runners in the girls race and both had top-10 finishes. Madi O’Neill was sixth and Alaina Scroggins placed seventh, three seconds later.