By Matt Gade

605 Sports

HURON — All season, the Philip Scotties had one dream.

To “stand alone” from the rest. 

Become the first team to win four-straight Class B state cross-country titles.

“That's been our mantra this year. It's on their shirt as we come to the end of the year, ‘Stand Alone,’” Philip head coach Ralph Kroetch said. “Now, if things hadn't worked the way we want them to today, we stand alone as the first team to win five regional championships, Region 5B. If things come out the way we wanted them to today, stand alone either as the only team to have ever done this, or now then the first one when it does get broken. So they stand alone forever.”

After narrowly defeating Mitchell Christian 12-17 a year ago at the state cross country meet, the Scotties knew it was going to be a proverbial dog fight Saturday at the Broadland Creek Golf Course in Huron.

Led by seniors Jack Peterson in second place and Baylor Burns in third, in addition to Creston Burns at seventh and David McKinley, 12th, the Scotties came out victorious, winning 12-16 over Mitchell Christian.

“Mitchell Christian is an amazing team. I told the (team) coming in. I said I figured points for an hour trying to figure out how it was going to go. I said ‘Boys, the best I can figure is a tie so we’ve got to push even more,” Kroetch said. “Tremendous effort on all their part. It was just four seniors.”

Mitchell Christian’s Silas Holdeman won with 16:16.94 to claim the Class B individual title. Peterson and Baylor Burns finished 16:27.57 and 16:33.27.

“That's kind of what I was expecting. I was hoping I could get Silas, but he had way more in the tank at the end of the race than I did,” Peterson said. “It feels good, just our mindset going into this is ‘We can't let them beat us.’ We made sure to do that.”

Philip's Baylor Burns runs the last 100 yards in the boys' Class B race. (Matt Gade/605 Sports)

Peterson and the rest of the Scotties had been working pretty hard all season. Kroetch said the team took it easy the week heading into to make sure the guys were healthy and ready to go Saturday.

“This week was nothing but conversational, just getting all the muscles back where they belong,” Kroetch said.

That rest paid dividends. Creston Burns and McKinley had season bests at the right time. Creston’s 16:57.7 beat his season best by more than 30 seconds. McKinley’s 17:11.8 was five seconds over his season best.

For Baylor Burns, he had a mission. To finish ahead of Mitchell Christian's Luke Mentele to have a chance at the team title. With another season best, Burns’ 16:33.3 edged out Mentele’s 16:46.34 for the third spot.

“I'm just so happy, I bested Luke, because that was kind of the deal breaker,” Baylor said. “So I'm really happy to finish it like that. I feel our team is just, I'm kind of speechless right now, but I'm just so proud of our team to achieve what we wanted to do. Just get that last ‘W’ before we go off. Since we’re all seniors.”

The Philip Scotties embrace after completing the Class B boys' race. (Matt Gade/605 Sports)