By Rich Winter

605 Sports

WARNER — Big things are happening with the Warner High School girls cross-country team. 

The Monarchs finished seventh at the 2023 Class B state meet, their highest placing in school history. With talent returning, and incoming talent aboard, coach Jeff Larson dialed back the meet schedule figuring training was more important than competing. While the Monarchs have been laying in the weeds most of the season, the girls had a program defining moment at the Battler Invitational in Gettysburg on Sept. 21. The Monarchs won the team title with eight points, ahead of two-time defending Class B state champion Potter County (18).

“That was definitely a confidence booster for us,” Larson said. “We know Potter County is battling some injuries but after the meet we celebrated. Our girls haven’t won a meet in 30 years. So it is exciting to know that all of our hard work is paying off.”

The Monarchs have been battling some injuries of their own, several of which date back to last spring and summer. Freshman Kenna Wolberg finished 15th at the state cross-country meet but battled various hip injuries in the spring and throughout the summer. 

“I wasn’t feeling very good during track,” Wolberg said. “My hips were misaligned so I did plenty of physical therapy and stretching.” 

Sophomore Kennadee Wagner finished fifth at the 2023 state meet and like Wolberg had to be somewhat cautious during the summer months.

“She had a crack in her growth plate this summer and that really limited her the first three weeks of the season,” Larson said. “Kennadee is just rounding into form and Kenna is about ready to take off but we do have to be careful of her speed work.” 

Larson has been coaching cross-country in Warner for 10 years and has always lacked numbers in the girls program, thanks in part to the incredible success of the Warner volleyball program. 

“It’s hard to compete against volleyball,” Larson said. “These girls have grown up with volleyball as the main option, and they’ve been so successful that everyone wants to be part of it. We’ve struggled to see numbers and we have several girls this year that are doing both sports and there just seems to be a love from our girls about running this season.”

Instead of struggling to find numbers the Monarchs now have 10 girls out for the sport. One of those newcomers is seventh-grader Kaitlyn Wirth, an athlete that Larson has been chomping at the bit to join the program after seeing her dominate lower level races in previous years. 

“Her brothers Michael and Benjamin ran for me so she comes from a good family that loves running,” Larson said. “She’s aggressive, she likes to win, loves to compete and is not afraid of the big moment.” 

Larson kept Wirth out of the first few varsity meets but the talent was too much to hold back and she’s been leading the Monarchs since the move up. At the Battler Invitational, Wirth (19:33) finished second behind Ipswich’s Madisyn Gellhaus (19:11) and in front of Class B heavy hitters, Highmore-Harrold’s Autumn Fallis (19:51) and Potter County’s Dannika Kaup (20:06)

In addition to Wirth’s second-place finish, Wolberg finished fifth, Wagner placed sixth, Addisyn Heinrich took seventh and Elodie Wood earned 10th.

Larson said last year’s seventh-place finish was the driving factor into getting athletes to put in summer miles.

“In years past we might have just one girl doing summer running,” he said. “Finishing seventh just motivated them and we had competition this summer and we have competition at every practice.

By Monday, the shine from their first win in 30-years had turned into, “Let’s forget about it, now we know what we have and we can just focus on each race as they come.”

Larson is a big proponent of pack running and tells his girls all the time that if you aren’t the No. 1 runner then your role is you have to beat the No. 1 or No. 2 girl from teams you are competing against. 

“Coach Larson is an extremely good coach and we trust everything that he is teaching us,” Wagner said. “We have a very strong team and it is very satisfying to see all of this hard work pay off.”