Kapaun boys cross country aiming for first Kansas high school state title since 1981

It’s been more than four decades since the last time the Kapaun Mt. Carmel boys cross country team has won a state championship.

It’s a 43-year title drought that the current crop of Crusaders has goals of ending on Saturday morning at the Class 5A state cross country meet at Rim Rock Farm in Lawrence.

“1981, that’s a long time ago,” said Kapaun coach Gage Garcia, who wasn’t even born before then. “That’s been our goal from the start, but I don’t think it’s something they put a lot of pressure on themselves about. They realize that we have a special team this year, but they also have a healthy respect for the competition we’re going to face.”

Kapaun has left no doubt it has the strongest boys team in the Wichita area. The Crusaders recently won the City League title with a team score of 17 points, two away from a perfect score, and last week won a 5A regional team title with 20 points.

Junior Daniel Enriquez has won five of his six races this season, even cracking 15 minutes in a 5-kilometer race in Emporia. Not far behind him have been senior Will Niederee and junior Cole Reintjes, a trio that has finished 1-2-3 in both postseason races to date.

“The best part about it is that it’s not unhealthy competition between them,” Garcia said. “They all realize the ultimate goal is being a great team. Those guys push each other so well that it’s affecting the other guys now too. They’re bringing those guys with them and it’s been huge for our team. Nobody on this team, including those top guys, would be as fast as they are without the others.”

The top three runners give Kapaun a good foundation, but the strength of the back-end of the lineup is what makes the Crusaders truly special.

The pack of senior Andrew Guyer, freshman Jack Sauer, junior Will Etheredge and sophomore Koelton Erwin has steadily improved over the course of the season. All seven runners now comfortably break 17 minutes and Kapaun has a stable of seniors in Tim Rowell, Konnor Bruening, Henry Schmidt and Carson Byrd who could step up in the varsity lineup for any meet. In what used to be a 95-second gap between the first and fifth scoring runner for Kapaun has been closed to a 53-second gap last week.

While the Crusaders may have been dominant against Wichita-area competition, the Kansas City-area competition in the 5A field will require them to collectively run their best race yet to achieve their goal of winning state. Spring Hill (88 points) and Blue Valley Southwest (120) both finished ahead of Kapaun (149) at the Rim Rock Classic on Sept. 28.

“What I love about this group is that they do a really good job of putting each other first,” Garcia said. “There’s just a very high level of support for each other, all the way from the top guy all the way down to our very last guy. That’s going to help us.”