Scott junior Maddie Strong won the individual state title in the girls Class 2A cross country meet at Bourbon County as the Eagles finished runner-up in the team standings.
Strong won the 5,000-meter race in 18 minutes, 41.98 seconds. The runner-up, Lincoln County freshman Abigail Bastin, finished just more than 12 seconds behind her at 18:54.03.
“It’s definitely a big deal in general just for our school to bring home state titles,” Strong said. “It’s all just kind of bizarre.”
Strong said she started in the lead but lost it around the mile mark before picking it up around the two-mile mark. Strong described the course as hilly, especially the last mile going up hill. But she has run on it many times.
“When (Bastin) passed me, I knew that wasn’t the pace I needed to keep if I was going to finish with a bigger time so I just tried not to let it discourage me,” Strong said. “I picked it up on the downhill sections. I’ve been a second-half (race) runner the majority of the season.”
Strong is the second individual Class 2A state champion in Scott history. Seventh-grader Anna Ryan, a 1999 Scott alumna, won the 4,000-meter race in 14:50.7 in 1993.
Strong finished sixth in the state meet last year in 19:45.63 as a sophomore. Scott head coach Zach Triplett said Strong was not happy with that finish, so they developed an off-season plan.
“I’m just real proud of Maddie,” Triplett said. “She just regauged herself and said, ‘I want that top spot.’ That has been her focus this entire year. She wanted to do everything she could to help this team out. She knew that taking the number one could really help the team. She is in the company of some great runners in Kentucky. We’re so happy for her too.”
Scott finished state runner-up as a team with 100 points. Lexington Catholic won the state title with 64 points.
The Eagles saw five runners place in the top 45 out of 225 runners. The other scorers were sophomore Ansley Lindloff in 10th in 20:03.65, eighth grader Grace Klim in 18th in 20:49.76, junior Loren Neal in 35th in 21:30.71 and junior Ellie Stratman in 43rd in 21:49.82.
“LexCath has such a strong team right now,” Triplett said. “They have five really strong runners. Our goal was to be a top-three this year. Here in the last week, every single one of our runners, one through five, have really stepped up. Each one has gotten a new personal best time over the last three weeks. That was the case at state. Almost every runner ran one of her best races this year. They didn’t let anybody set their pace.”
The Highlands girls improved from 11th last year to seventh overall. Eighth grader Ella Taylor again led the Blubirds taking 15th in 20:33.68.
“The girls are young,” said Brian Alessandro, Highlands head coach. “We’re improving eery year. We had some good performances.”
In the boys 2A race at the Bourbon County Cross Country course, Highlands finished fourth with 230 points by one point over Bell County (231) and within four points of third-place Corbin’s 226. North Oldham won it with 79 points. Scott took 19th with 509 points.
“During the race, we didn’t run as well as I had hoped with some non-running injuries over the last several weeks,” Alessandro said. “Overall, it ended up pretty well for us.”
Senior Caden Schroeder took 13th out of 255 runners in 16:56.49 to lead the Bluebirds. Thomas Nelson sophomore Riku Sugie won the race in 15:38.43. Schroeder and Taylor earned all-state honors for Highlands.
“I think we worked really hard this year,” Taylor said. “We gave it our all and everybody’s real proud of each other and how well we’ve done. I’m glad that Coach Alessandro helped us and guided us through making it to state.”