Park Hill seniors Ben Richenburg, above left, and Gunnar Roberrtson, above right, were two of five runners to run a sub-18:00 5K last season, which has never happened before in program history.
After having a program-breaking year in 2021, the Park Hill boys’ cross-country team has some question marks going into the fall.
For the first time in Park Hill history, The Trojans had five runners who were able to run sub-18:00 5K’s last fall. With the season approaching, the top-runner is still in the air as senior Gunnar Robertson – who was the teams best runner in the last couple of years – may or may not be on the team this year.
“Gunnar has been a little on the fence since he has a lot of academic things he wants to figure out for his senior year,” Park Hill boys’ cross-country coach Nick Gardner said. “He was on pace to make it to state last year but wasn’t able to finish in the district race; then he had a great track season. He will be our top guy if he does come out.”
Robertson was close to making it to the state meet in his sophomore year as well, but missed out when the amount of state qualifiers was lowered because of COVID-19. Cade Pummill and Ben Richenburg were the top Trojans at districts last season – finishing back-to-back in 69th and 70th places – as the senior class will be pivotal in 2022.
“Samuel Benson and Caden Mills are our seniors this year who have stepped into leadership roles. I have six seniors on the squad and all six of them are competing for spots,” Gardner said.
Lucas Urista is another senior and sophomore Jakob Johnston was consistently one of Park Hill’s reliable runners last season. Evan Dixon and Jordan Beck are a pair of freshmen who have high potential this fall.
“Those two are impressive because it’s hard to get freshman out immediately, but they’ve been out all summer long getting a lot of miles in. It’s a jump from middle school to high school so I’m excited to see how they do,” Gardner said.