Run like crazy, hit the takeoff board, and go airborne. It sounds so simple, this long-jumping thing, for a natural like Highland's Nick Jones, whose personal best is 22 feet, 10 inches — with a sore hip flexor. (via NW Times)
Liberty girls track coach Pam Koch hopes senior Laura Greenfield enjoys her senior season.
Greenfield, who has already signed a track scholarship to the University of Missouri, has placed in the shot put at the Class 4 state track meet the last two seasons. She placed sixth as a sophomore in 2006 and second last year.
Greenfield has one last chance to win a state title and Koch is wishing she will enjoy the ride. Liberty’s track season starts March 28 at the Rusty Hodge Invitational at Blue Springs South High School....
Much of Liberty’s success in boys track in Dan Davies’ stint as coach has come on the track.
This season is shaping up to be the different. The strength of this season’s team will come from the Blue Jays’ jumpers.
Senior D.C. Okonta, who placed sixth last year at the Class 4 state meet in the triple jump, sophomore Marcus Lucas and sophomore Katro Keels form a potent trio that should give Liberty plenty of points in the triple, long jump and high jump this season.
“If you go back six or seven years ago, we were a powerhouse in the distance running events,” Davies said. “We had depth in those events and then we tried to piece things around them to help them out and now it’s the other way around....
It was Groundhog Day for Liberty's boys cross country team at the Class 4 state meet.
For the second straight year, the Blue Jays took 11th at the Oak Hills Golf Center in Jefferson City. And for the second consecutive state meet, sectional champion Stanton Ragland was disappointed with his finish.
The Liberty senior took 23rd last year and took 29th in a time of 16 minutes, 42 seconds on Saturday, Nov. 2....
Liberty's Megan Yohe and Lydia Newland were without their teammates at last weekend's Class 4 state cross country meet.
But that didn't stop the duo from being the top Northland finishers Saturday, Nov. 3, at Oak Hills Golf Center in Jefferson City.
Yohe, a sophomore, finished 11th in the girls race and earned all-state honors after beating Columbia Rock Bridge's Lauren Borduin to the finish line in 19 minutes, 53 seconds....
The conventional wisdom before last weekend's Class 4 cross country sectional meet was that if there was a Liberty team that was going to struggle to make it to state, it would be the boys team.
But that's not what happened Saturday, Oct. 27, at Lake Jacomo.
The Liberty boys are going to Jefferson City after qualifying in relatively easy fashion, while the Blue Jays girls struggled and placed fifth.
The Blue Jays took third with 90 points, which four points ahead of fourth-place Rockhurst and 22 points ahead of fifth-place Lee's Summit North.
Liberty talked all week about had the proper mental focus for the race. The goal wasn't to barely slide by to make it to the state meet....
In Tim Nixon's nearly three decades of coaching Liberty cross country, he says he can't remember having two better individual performances at a sectional meet than he got from senior Stanton Ragland and sophomore Megan Yohe.
Ragland won his second straight Class 4 sectional championship Saturday, Oct. 27, at Lake Jacomo, while Yohe ran to her first sectional title.
“It's great for both of them,” Nixon said. “It seemed like last year we kind of got used to Stanton winning. This year has been a different year for him. It's been a little bit more up and down, but to see him back on top at this point of the season says a lot about him. He's finishing his career strong.
“Megan has had a very solid year. She was the Big Seven champion and then took second at district....
Last year's Class 4 girls cross country champion isn't going back to Jefferson City to defend its title.
Liberty, the winners of the District 8 meet last week, took fifth at the Class 4 sectional meet on Saturday, Oct. 27 at Lake Jacomo. The Blue Jays scored 102 points and Lee's Summit North took the final state spot with 98.
“I'm sure a lot of people are going to compare them to last year's team that won, but it's a different team,” Liberty coach Tim Nixon said. “All I can say is that they are a great group of girls and sometimes you run hard and things go your way and sometimes you run hard and things don't go your way.”
The Blue Jays failed to qualify despite having the sectional champion. Sophomore Megan Yohe took the sectional title with a time of 19 minutes, 48.98 seconds.
But Liberty struggled to stay in a pack behind her and were overtaken by Oak Park and Lee's Summit North....
Some high school athletes seem to stick around forever. It feels like a decade passes between their freshmen and senior years.
For Liberty cross country coach Tim Nixon, the opposite is true. He’s coached his daughter Camrie, a Blue Jays senior, for four years and the time has flown by.
The Nixons will start their final postseason run together Saturday, Oct. 20, at Stocksdale Park, less than a quarter of a mile from their house. The Nixons and the Blue Jays, the defending Class 4 state champions, will try to advance to sectional competition at the Class 4 District 8 meet.
“It’s almost like her career has been in fast forward,” Tim says. “It really has gone fast. We are now going on college visits, and you think about where did all the time go?
“It’s been extremely gratifying to share this part of my life with somebody in my family. I’ve enjoyed that.”
Liberty brought back its pack mentality to take second at the Suburban Big Seven Conference meet.
The Blue Jays were disappointed with their performance at the Rim Rock Farm Classic on Sept. 29. The team's second through fifth runners had trouble staying together as a group, leading to a ninth-place finish.
Senior Stanton Ragland had another fine performance, placing third in a time of 17 minutes, 11 seconds. And Liberty's four other top runners finished in the top 20, helping the team take second on Saturday, Oct. 6 at Stocksdale Park. The Blue Jays scored 71 points while Oak Park won the title with 27 points.
"We didn't very well at (Rim Rock) and I really don't know what happened there," senior Phil LaCapra said. "I think it might have had to do with not being ready for the heat. Today, we stepped up. We were a group of four. We were strong and we talked during the race. I think we accomplished what we wanted to do today."
Junior Tyler Stuber, coming back for his first varsity race since a motocross accident in August, was 14th with a time of 18:00....
Sophomore wins Big Seven Conference race, team places third
There isn’t much Liberty sophomore Megan Yohe hasn’t done this year in being the cross country team’s top runner.
Winning a varsity race was still on the checklist. She can now cross that off.
Yohe led the Suburban Big Seven Conference girls varsity race almost from start to finish, capturing the championship in a time of 20 minutes, 53 seconds Saturday, Oct. 6 at Stocksdale Park.
The Blue Jays took third overall with 61 points. Oak Park won with 43, followed by Lee’s Summit North with 52.
“This is very exciting because I've never won a race before,” Yohe said. “ I was proud and I think our team did pretty well.”
Liberty's girls cross country team worked on a little teamwork at the Rim Rock Farm Classic last weekend.
While sophomore Megan Yohe has led the team all season, coach Tim Nixon was looking his other varsity runners to team up for better results. He wanted to see if they could run in a pack, at least through the first part of the 5-kilometer race.
The Blue Jays' strategy produced good results in Lawrence, Kan. on Saturday, Sept. 29, as they took sixth out of 20 teams with a total of 227 points.
"We were just trying to get everybody to run together for the first mile and they were able to accomplish that," Nixon said. "We were pretty pleased with where we finished."
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Liberty's top boys cross country runner is back on track.
After a disappointing 36th place finish at the Southern Stampede in Joplin two weeks ago, senior Stanton Ragland stepped up at the Rim Rock Farm Classic, placing fourth out of 174 runners in the Gold Division race with a time of 16 minutes, 46.90 seconds.
"It was a very good performance," Liberty coach Tim Nixon said. "I was glad to see it because he didn't have one of his better races at Joplin. It was a very strong field and to take fourth is quite an accomplishment."
Now, Nixon and the Blue Jays have to figure out who is going to be racing with Ragland in the upcoming postseason series....
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It didn't take long for Liberty sophomore Megan Yohe to get into the heat of competition this season.
Coming down the stretch of the girls varsity race at last weekend’s Liberty Invitational, Yohe found herself side-by-side with Oak Park senior Erin McCulloch for the last 200 yards. Yohe just got by McCulloch at the finish and took fifth in the race, helping Liberty’s girls team place fourth Saturday, Sept. 1, at Stocksdale Park.
The Jays, the defending state champions, scored 104 points in the meet, falling behind Oak Park (71), St. Teresa's (76) and Columbia Rock Bridge (98).
Yohe, who took 30th at last year’s state meet, finished the two-mile course in 14 minutes, 29 seconds, just a half-step ahead of McCulloch....
Park Hill South boys cross country coach Brad Banning sometimes feels like he needs help coaching the mental side of competitive running.
Some of his runners have had their share of difficult races, many of at the most inopportune times.
Maybe it’s time to call in the big guns....
The practice has been put in. The time trials have been completed.
And finally, Liberty's boys and girls cross country teams get a chance to race....
Liberty's boys cross country team slipped in the side door at last year's state meet in Jefferson City....
The bull's-eye will be big on the backs of the Liberty's girls cross country team this year....