The Centralia boys cross country program came full circle and then some on Saturday.

Day 2 State Cross Country Photo Gallery

A Panther hadn’t medaled at a state meet since 2016 when Nathan Sims was all-state but had much more hardware to bring home from the 2023 Class 3 MSHSAA championships at Gans Creek in Columbia. The boys finished third with 133 points to earn the boys program’s first ever state trophy — one year after the Lady Panthers finished second — and had Rohan Holiman, Dryst Bostick and Carter Moss place in the top 30 to each be all-state for the first time. For the girls this year, Kenedee Moss earned her first state medal as well after finishing 16th.

Head coach Jason Watermann was happy to see a Centralia boy and girl medal at the same state meet since 2016’s all-state duo of Sims and Madeline Bostick. After the boys team missed the podium a year ago, Watermann was even happier to see so many boys medal individually to help the team surpass projections. 

“They got a taste of it last year and started putting the miles in last year,” Watermann said. “That accumulation of those miles, the preparations and knowing what to do and what to expect helped. Every single one of them PR’ed. Some of them by 30 seconds or more.”

According to virtual meets, Watermann said Centralia was projected to finish fifth. With fresh legs and motivation that carried into the first race of the day at 9 a.m., the Panthers proved how formidable they were early.

Centralia led for half of the race, and while that didn’t last, Holiman ended up in 11th place with a time of 16:11, which set the school’s boys state-course record and broke his own record for a boys 5,000-meter race. Bostick made a huge jump from last year as he finished 140th in 2022 and returned with a 21st-place time of 16:27. Carter Moss was 44th a year ago and was 26th with a 16:34 time. Eli Hill followed in 48th place in the 168-runner field, and Wesley Robertson was 92nd.

“We had a good spot (at the start) to look at the tall grass right in the first turn,” Watermann said. “We made the straightest line possible to there, going as hard as we possibly can.”

Watermann said having Holiman out in front makes him function as someone the other Panthers chase, making them better. 

“You have races within races,” Watermann said. “Our practices are like races. I tell most of them to ‘Calm down a little bit, and we’re not racing right now’ but none of them want to give up their spot of being first at any point in time, which is good because then they’re competitive.”

Holiman is the first boy in program history to qualify for state four times and has been Centralia’s top runner after dealing with shin splints a year ago. That was remedied with more Vitamin D, and Watermann said that has helped remedy Holiman’s times as well by keeping him consistently around 17 minutes.

Having the teammates that each had the desire to improve also played a huge role in the team succeeding as a whole, Holiman said, as the Panthers felt this season was the year to add a boys trophy to the school trophy case.

“Especially this year, we’ve been way more competitive than usual,” Holiman said. “We’re always trying to one-up each other, and it pushes us a lot farther. In the beginning of the season, we had a practice where we ran 14 miles. That’s something we’ve never done before, but we do it anyway. You get something out of it.”

Bostick said the team is a “group of guys you want to be around everyday.” He said it feels good to have earned so much hardware this year and wants even more next year.

“It feels great with a state medal after cutting it close 115 spots last year,” Bostick said, jokingly. “Training with them is as fun as it gets, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I can’t wait for next year when we challenge for first place.”

Moss was so ready for Saturday that sleep was a challenge. He said he hopes the Panthers’ accomplishments this season makes future teams just as excited.

“I had a bunch of excitement nerves heading into this race and woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep,” Moss said. “All that hard work that we did paid off. It feels great and is going to excel into bigger things for the next generation of runners and push ourselves to do a lot better.”

Kenedee Moss was eager to run Saturday as well but with some extra motivation because she finished 26th a year ago to miss a state medal by one spot. The limit for all-state status was increased to the top 30 this year, but Moss’ performance would’ve been good enough for a medal in any year after passing eight runners during the race to set a school girls state-course record.

“It feels really great after last year, cutting it short by one,” Moss said. “I just knew I had to give it my all this year. It feels great just knowing I accomplished what most people want to.”

Watermann said she was understandably upset when hearing about the new cutoff but was focused enough to beat her personal-best time by about 30 seconds.

“She put in the miles as well, but she’s a basketball player too,” Watermann said. “We have to work around that too.”

Shelby Lewis went into Saturday’s meet as the fifth girl to qualify four times for the state meet. Lewis had a strong end to her senior cross country season that didn’t include a state medal after finishing 38th, but her time of 20:18 gave her personal-best time and a fighting chance in the race.

“21:21 was 30th place in Class 2 so I said, ‘If you do 20 anything, good positive things might happen,” Watermann said. “It’s amazing how fast this race was.”

Look for the story in the Saturday, Nov. 11, 2023, edition of the Mexico Ledger.