The Bomber Cross Country teams opened up their season at the Richard Clark Invitational in Bolivar, MO. A total of 55 high school teams from all classifications and over 2000 runners competed in the meet, including many of Missouri’s best.

The meet was scored as an overall contest between all classifications as well as within each individual classification. In Missouri, the largest division is class 5 and by size, the Bombers are considered class 4.

The Bombers finished 3rd overall as a team, but claimed the win as the top team in the second largest classification (Class 4). The overall meet was tight, with Nixa winning at 107 points, West Plains in second with 112 points, and the Bombers finishing third with 113 points. Despite finishing one point behind West Plains in the overall standings, the Bombers bested the Zizzers in the division results by a score of 35 to 44. This was largely in part to the the Bombers claiming the first three individual positions with Jackson Free winning in 15:41, Connor King second in 16:00, and Garrett Barr third in 16:05. Trenton Smith finished in 14th at 16:43, and Levi Payne was the final scorer in 15th at 17:14. Freshman Wave Simmons had an impressive high school debut running 17:47. Caiden Kaspar finished in 18:01, Eli Lane in 18:19, Kohler Mathews in 18:44, and Cannon Matlock in 18:45. All Bombers ran personal bests.

The Lady Bombers did not run a full scoring squad of five runners, but posted several personal bests. Cisily Goettler lead the way with over a minute and half improvement of 20:23. Lucy Koehn finished 10th, improving her own best by over 30 seconds from her all-state performance last year. Camilla Johnson finished 12th in 20:44 which was nearly a 2 minute personal best. Erin Smith finished 23rd at 21:33.

Oakley Recktenwald was the lone Junior Bomber in the 2500m race. The travel standard for this meet was the running varsity striped shorts time for 5k prior to the start of the season. This is a noteworthy achievement for any Bomber but an absolute rarity for an 8th grader. Oakley started off his season with bang, placing 4th out of 340 runners in a massive personal best of 8:41.


Thoughts from Coach Norris:

“Rather than ease into the season, we wanted to open up with a challenge to find out exactly where we are. This meet is just 2.5 hours away and is one of the finest in the region. Our kids were up to it, and the results speak for themselves. After one of the best summer training blocks we’ve ever had, we’re excited to keep putting in work and getting better.