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CROSS COUNTRY: Joplin’s Dunn, Campbell earn all-state honors; Neosho’s Cole takes 6th

By:
SoMo Sports staff reports

Jennalee Dunn’s final time running for Joplin provided yet another time she reset the Eagles’ school record.

In her final race, Dunn finished in 18 minutes, 36.1 seconds to break the record for the final time and nearly dropped a minute off the previous mark of 19:22 during the MSHSAA Class 5 Cross Country State Championships held Friday at Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia.

Her time this year allowed her to take 14th place, a few spots up after taking 18th last year and a noticeable drop in time from 19:11.9.

“It feels good to be all-state again,” Dunn said. “It has been a rough year. I was just going out and seeing how I could run and really try to enjoy the run and make it my last, best race. It feels really good. It was my last race, I wanted to make sure I ran the best I could the whole time. I didn’t want to have regrets afterwards.”

Joplin coach Dustin Dixon poses with Hobbs Campbell at Friday’s medal ceremony.

Dunn was in 28th place at the one kilometer check point but steadily started moving up the leaderboard. With 1K left, she moved up from 20th to 16th and then a 3:37.3 split on the final kilometer was her second fastest time – behind a 3:31.9 to open the race.

Teammate Allie Keizer took 96th place for the Eagles, jumping 18 spots over her final 1K in the race.

The Joplin boys had seven runners there and took ninth place overall.

Junior Hobbs Campbell earned an all-state medal by placing 14th – like Dunn.

He ran 15:45.1 and peaked at 10th place at one point in the race – but that came after he made a strategic move.

“It was way faster than last year and it was very hectic,” he said. “At the very beginning, I was super boxed in and I had to come to a complete stop and go around people and try to pass people. I went out there and I wanted to be near the top and I was something like 13th (place) and then 10th and then after the 3K, I started hurting really bad. I was just trying to finish after that.”

Three other runners finished in the top half of the field of 159 runners: sophomore Ian Horton (49th), senior Zaben Barnes (64th) and Nick Horton (73rd).

An example of how much faster this year’s field was: Ian Horton’s time of 16:18.7 would’ve been 26th last year and Nicholas Horton’s time of 16:31.3 would’ve been 36th.

Neosho’s Kaden Cole is pictured during Friday’s Class 5 race.

“We had a great day, I was hoping we’d place a little higher than nine but you look at how the boys ran, out of the seven, we had four set lifetime bests and two ran within five seconds of their personal record,” Joplin coach Dustin Dixon said. “We ran about as well as you could hope. The other teams ran better. We were in seventh (place) in the 4K but dropped but it was close. We were 40 points from fifth. I’m really proud. They had a great year. We won four meets and the conference for the first time. We had a great year.”

Neosho’s Kaden Cole was in the group of leaders early on in the race and the senior finished in sixth place.

An all-state performer last year, Cole has made big improvements over the past three years. His debut at the state meet ended with a 131st place finish.

Cole was 14th early on but then worked his way into 10th then ninth over a 2K stretch. He closed with a 3:02.9 split, his second fast split on the 5K and moved up three spots.

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