Lee’s Summit West teams conquer hilly Missouri state cross country course

JEFFERSON CITY | Chelsey Phoebus had known this feeling before — the feeling of her legs wanting to go on strike against her unmerciful mind pushing them to run faster.

Through this cross country season, Phoebus has usually run out in the front of her Lee’s Summit West pack — the girls who proved their staying power by repeating along with the boys as the Missouri Class 4 team state champions — and on Saturday, she commanded that role again at the Oak Hills Golf Center for nearly 5 kilometers and finally that last brutal 150 meters. The cruelest stretch in all of Missouri high school state championship sports.

“There are a lot of monster hills (here), not a lot of downhills, then next thing you know you’re going up a big hill again,” said Phoebus, who finished fifth overall. “My body was ready for it to be over.”

Oak Hills has an idyllic postcard image about it, resting near ponds, rolling hills and trees as far as you care to see. On any other day, it’s an 18-hole getaway that puts the mind and body at ease. But for one Saturday out of the year, Oak Hills turns into a 5-kilometer torture chamber.

No other Missouri state championship event presents such a high level of difficulty at the end. The Oak Hills finish-line climb is like adding a water hazard 5 yards away from the end zone. And they say football players are tougher than cross country kids.

Many state associations choose easy and fast courses to host cross country championship meets, especially Illinois — a course so flat you can play pool on it. But Missouri’s finale challenges runners with turns and hills, and for kicks and giggles, turns on top of hills. And the most challenging part of the course just so happens to be at the very end, when runners negotiate a jarring descent before reaching the roped-off gallery and turn right into a wide but slanted incline.

On Saturday, runners, red-faced in agony and tossing to and fro like a bobblehead, looked through weary eyes to read the word “FINISH” taunting them. Some grunted, others panted while one simply couldn’t take it and collapsed.

“I think it’s really hard, it’s a big challenge,” said Harrisonville junior Maksim Korolev, who finished as the Class 3 boys runner-up. “Your legs are totally dead and the finish line seems so far away. But the whole time, I just pushed. I thought to myself that somebody was behind me.”

Korolev not only survived the Hills, but punched back with a fight of his own. As well as Lee’s Summit West junior Kevin Colon, the only individual state champ from the Kansas City area, who won the Class 4 race in 15 minutes, 51 seconds. Colon led his Lee’s Summit West pack that included four other All-State performers to the team championship.

But through the years, not everyone has been as fortunate as Korolev and Colon.

Jim Schmuck has seen more than three decades of Missouri state cross country, bringing his Parkway South teams to Jefferson City and now volunteering as the assistant finish line judge. He remembers when the meet offered even scarier challenges but after parents complained, the state association eliminated two hills and went with the present-day layout.

“There was a sad scene with a young lady in the ’80s and this hill ate her up,” Schmuck said. “She was in third place on this hill, then crawled in on her hands and knees and finished in the 60s.”

Schmuck recalled this story right as the Class 1 boys’ runners made their way up the hill. And just moments after he excused himself, an Oak Ridge runner named Garret Light wiped out six steps away from the finish line.

“You get to see inside their souls because it tests them in the most pressure-packed moment of their lives,” said Schmuck. “You want to see them get back up, you want to see them convince themselves that they can achieve more than they’ve ever imagined.”

submitted by CANDACE BUCKNER - 2008-11-08 22:17:02

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