Baldwin — Champions and challengers opened their cross country season on Saturday at the Baker Invitational at Baldwin City Golf Course.
The small, yet stacked, meet featured the top two boys teams from last year's Class 6A state meet -- Shawnee Mission Northwest and Lawrence High -- and the top two girls teams -- SM Northwest and Olathe South.
"This is really tough competition," LHS coach Dick Reamon said. "It's so good an awful lot schools that get an invitation won't even come down here because they don't want to butt heads with it."
Like the state meet last fall, Northwest and LHS finished 1-2 in the boys race and SM Northwest and O-South finished 1-2 in the girls race on Saturday.
The Cougar boys finished with 21 points to top the Lions' 37 at the three-team event.
"We hoped the spread between Northwest and us would be closer," Reamon said. "I think we got some things to work on. The beauty of this experience is we know more about ourselves and other people."
LHS senior Chris Williams started where he left off last fall -- the first runner to cross the finish line. The two-time defending state champion used a strong kick to finish the 4,000-meter race in 13 minutes, 1.3 seconds. Northwest's John Sumner, who lost to Williams by a fraction of a second at last year's state track 3,200, lagged by .9 seconds.
"It's a friendly rivalry," Williams said. "John and I seem to end next to each other lately. Coach doesn't like the end to come down to a foot race. It's kind of risky when it's you and another guy. Hopefully, they all won't finish that close."
Northwest placed 2-3-4-5. Sumner and his teammates pressured Williams most of the race.
"I was really scared," Williams said. "It's hard to mentally stay in it when it's you vs. four guys coming at you from same team."
Williams' kick thrilled Reamon.
"Chris has got that heart and he wasn't going to get beat," the LHS coach said. "He finished with that charge and showed he's the champion and deserving of that title."
Lawrence's D.J. Hilding (sixth), Justin Riley (ninth) and Dylan McClain (10th) also placed in the top 10.
"We know we've gotten a lot better over the summer," said Hilding, who finished in 13:29.4. "We need to work harder and harder every week and improve each meet."
Before arriving, LHS thought the race was for 5,000 meters. However, the course was sliced by 1,000 meters.
"Apparently the other coaches knew about it," Reamon said. "I'm told there is a message on my voice mail. All I know is it hits us out of the wild blue. That's no excuse. They all ran the same course. From a mental standpoint, that was a lot to expect. We would have done some things differently in our last few practices like getting a little more leg speed."
In the girls' 3,200-meter run, sophomore Andrea Hemphill placed seventh to pace LHS. She finished in 13:14.60.
"I'm just going to try and improve and keep working at it," Hemphill said.
Senior Elise Schnose placed ninth for LHS in 13:23.9.
State runner-up Amanda Pape of Olathe South won in 12:02.2.
-- Steve Rottinghaus' phone message number is 832-7152. His e-mail address is srottinghaus@ljworld.com
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