Free State High’s girls cross country runners took to a wet course Saturday morning at the Rim Rock Farm Classic and muddied their way to the program’s best-ever finish at the large-scale event.

The Firebirds beat out all but one of the field’s 27 teams, powered by a fourth-place finish by Claire Sanner (15:21.3), a sixth-place run by Emily Venters (15:24.9) and a 14th-place showing by Bailey Sullivan (15:51.7) at the highly competitive regular-season meet that featured 181 runners.

“That’s the best any Kansas team had finished (in Rim Rock’s gold races),” FSHS coach Steve Heffernan noted, “until Manhattan won the boys race.”

The Free State girls, the coach added, had the depth to finish just behind champion Pine Creek. Molly McCord (44th), Kiran Cordes (51st) and Rosemary Newsome (79th) all finished in the top half of the field.

“It’s real interesting. I don’t see them actually get nervous for a meet,” Heffernan said, adding the aggressive nature of Sanner, Venters and Sullivan makes that possible. “They just want to go out and race.”

Free State’s boys, led by Ryan Liston (54th, 17:12.7), placed 20th in the Gold 5K, and Ethan Donley was 85th. Heffernan said the difficult race should help the Firebirds down the line.

“There didn’t seem to be any real panic or distress,” the coach said, “and they started trying to bypass people in the middle of the race.”

Lawrence’s girls finished 26th and the LHS boys took 35th. Leah Gabler was 76th in the girls 4K and Andy Freeman placed 182nd to lead the Lions’ boys.

Baldwin High competed in the Gold races, too, and the Bulldogs’ boys finished 14th, with Dakota Helm (51st), Joe Pierce (55th) and Ethan Hartzell (76th) leading the way. The BHS girls placed 24th. Addie Dick took 86th.

Rim Rock Farm High School Classic

Saturday at Rim Rock Farm

Girls 4K Gold

Team scores (top five/area): 1. Pine Creek, 102; 2. Free State, 120; 3. St. Thomas Aquinas, 138; 4. College Park, 144; 5. St. Teresa’s Academy, 216; 24. Baldwin, 551; 26. Lawrence, 640.

Individual results (top five/area): 1. Ashlynn Yokom, Iowa City West, 15:01; 2. Ann Campbell, St. Teresa’s, 15:13.6; 3. Alaina Schroeder, Manhattan, 15:17.6; 4. Claire Sanner, FSHS, 15:21.3; 5. Kaliegh Kroeker, Pine Creek, 15:22.9; 6. Emily Venters, FSHS, 15:24.9; 14. Bailey Sullivan, FSHS, 15:51.7; 44. Molly McCord, FSHS, 16:36; 51. Kiran Cordes, FSHS, 16:39.4; 76. Leah Gabler, LHS, 17:01.5; 79. Rosemary Newsome, FSHS, 17:02.4; 86. Addie Dick, Bald., 17:06.1; 91. Laura Neilsen, LHS, 17:13.6; 93. Mackenzie Russell, Bald., 17:14.8; 103. Libby Verhaeghe, Bald., 17:22.6; 132. Hannah Hutton, Bald., 17:51.1; 137. Liv Lyche, FSHS, 17:57.8; 142. Riley Shook, LHS, 18:05.4; 144. Fayth Peterson, Bald., 18:06.3; 154. Katie Jones, Bald., 18:19.1; 165. Caitlin Lewis, LHS, 18:35.4; 174. Mallory McFall, LHS, 19:15.1; 180. Dana Bequette, LHS, 21:07.4; 181. Aimee Neilsen, LHS, 21:58.4.

Boys 5K Gold

Team scores (top five/area): 1. Manhattan, 113; 2. College Park, 121; 3. Liberty, 156; 4. Wichita North, 197; 5. Olathe North, 209; 14. Baldwin, 436; 20. Free State, 491; 35. Lawrence, 974.

Individual results (top five/area): 1. Noah Kauppila, Marquette, 15:26.7; 2. Stuart McNutt, Blue Valley West, 15:38; 3. Zachary Alhamra, Pine Creek, 15:40.7; 4. Stephen Mugeche, Blue Springs, 15:40.8; 5. Jacob Shiohira, Bentonville, 15:44.2; 51. Dakota Helm, Bald., 17:10.4; 54. Ryan Liston, FSHS, 17:12.7; 55. Joe Pierce, Bald., 17:12.7; 76. Ethan Hartzell, Bald., 17:24.3; 85. Ethan Donley, FSHS, 17:29.1; 103. Tanner Hockenbury, FSHS, 17:40.5; 106. Thomas Becker, FSHS, 17:41.1; 137. George Letner, Bald., 17:57.8; 139. Nevin Dunn, Bald., 17:58.5; 164. Curtiz Zicker, FSHS, 18:15.9; 182. Andy Freeman, LHS, 18:27.2; 190. Sam Stephens, LHS, 18:31.2; 196. Connor Ballenger, FSHS, 18:34.6; 205. Nathan Pederson, LHS, 18:41.3; 211. Keegan Matheis, LHS, 18:48.5; 215. Phillip Carroll, Bald., 18:53; 223. Eddie Wilson, LHS, 19:07.2; 229. Zach Smith, Bald., 19:13.7; 230. Tim Schraad, LHS, 19:19.3; 240. Ian Hierl, LHS, 19:57.6.

Free State’s Cole Stallard’s time of 17:57 was not included in the official race results.