Saturday was an unforgettable state meet for cross country runners.

State Cross Country Day 2 Photo Gallery

The day was indelible for most due to the rainy and muddy conditions but had added importance for the Centralia boys. On the second day of the MSHSAA Cross Country Championships at Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia, the Panthers on the Class 3 boys race for the school’s first ever cross country state title. 

A year after finishing third at last year’s meet for the boys’ first ever state trophy, Centralia secured the top team prize with 122 points to beat out Notre Dame (Cape Girardeau) by 10 points. Senior Carter Moss and freshman Nolan Spickert earned individual all-state honors with respective times of a 12th-place 17:07 and a 13th-place 17:08. Head coach Jason Watermann said he was “shell-shocked” by the results.

“They have all run together for so long,” Watermann said. “Losing those two guys, Eli Hill and Rohan Holiman, to graduation and gaining these two freshmen with Jensen (Decker) and Nolan, I was expecting at least to finish in the top four again. Everyone’s time was getting better and better every single year.”

Moss is happy to make history in his final season and is personally proud to have earned all-state honors two straight years. He and Spickert have been taking turns as the team’s top runner this year and were appropriately neck-and-neck down the home stretch at state.

“It feels so surreal,” Moss said. “It hasn’t really clicked for me completely yet. I’m still in shock. I knew there was something there after we finished third. It was kind of like a chip on our shoulder this year. We wanted to go for No. 1.”

Moss said gaining talented freshmen helped a lot, including this year’s Clarence Cannon Conference champion Spickert. Moss, of course,  finished close to him as the runner-up. Spickert had plenty of experience heading into his first high school season, saying he has been running since fourth or fifth grade. 

“Our team definitely deserves it after putting in all of the work that we have, all the miles and all of the practices,” Spickert said. “Everybody really coming together made things work. A team bond makes things happen.”

Centralia has won meets by more comfortable margins this season, including the Centralia Invitational by 42 points over Father Tolton and districts by 46 points over Southern Boone. The Panthers led from start to finish on Saturday, but Notre Dame shrank its deficit until it trailed by 10 points after 4,000 meters. The margin didn’t shrink anymore to Watermann’s delight.

Watermann said he had his eyes trained on the team score as the race was winding down and was ecstatic his boys didn’t allow the comeback. A comeback with that margin doesn’t take much, and he said Notre Dame had potential to make it happen since it was a point better in projection based on personal-best times.

“I couldn’t believe how we led the entire single race. That was unbelievable,” Watermann said. “After that first 3K and we’re still in first, I was always go to the 4K marker and let everyone know (where they stand). At the 4K, we were ahead by 10 points and I said to every single one of those runners I saw, ‘We are up by 10 points. You can’t let anyone, anyone, pass you and you have to start passing people to secure that win.’ 10 points, that’s like one kid falling back just a little bit because there are so many people in the race.” 

After MoMileSplit ranked Centralia first at the start of October and the Panthers defended their district title, Watermann said top four was definitely a safe goal, but the efforts of everybody made the state wire-to-wire victory possible. Senior Dryst Bostick had the third-best finish in 37th out of 162 runners with a time of 17:53, Zane Deckerd was 69th with a 18:23, Wesley Robertson was 71st with a 18:24, Jensen Decker was 78th with a 18:34, and Lane Chancellor was 91st with a 18:47. Moss shouted out Robertson for making a leap he needed to help the team.

Mental toughness also had to be present like the mud on runners’ legs. Watermann said Gans Creek wasn’t in ideal condition for personal-bests, starting at some start boxes that resembled a puddle at a turn and including the dampness of the curves and downhill in the first 2,000 meters made clear by Kenedee Moss and Katelynn Asbury competing in the girls race earlier. The Panthers knew it was bad obviously but trudged through it. 

“Every single turn (was difficult),” Moss said. “The terrain was just bad. It looked like a pig’s habitat — just straight mud. You just have to be strategic. You have to pass next one, pick off the next, pick off the next and you have to maintain that.”

“Having the longest spikes on the team, it still felt like I was running on ice,” Spickert said. “You just couldn’t get any traction. It felt like you took way more steps than you should have.”

Moss knew Spickert could handle the conditions, joking that the team gained “another Rohan,” since he has a “kick like Rohan” and is able to “keep going” and “put it into another gear.” To sum up, Moss said Centralia had all the assets and preparation even through “rainy days” and “scorching hot days.” 

Spickert said his teammates helped bridge whatever gap existed to prepare him to contribute to the team’s efforts and give him friendly competition to force him to be faster. He gave special credit to his fellow freshman Decker, who Spickert said has been “supporting me for my entire cross country career.”

The mud will wash off after Saturday’s race, but the Panthers’ status as the 2024 Class 3 state champions will never be washed out. However, the team is memorable to Watermann and his runners for reasons beyond that. 

“To be able to run within a minute of each other, one through five, and still know that the sixth guy, whoever that guy is that day, can come in be the four or the five or the three, that’s just unbelievable,” Watermann said. “They give each other a hard time sometimes, but it’s like a family. Everyone’s a sibling.”

Watermann said siblings get along and tease each other in a lot of places but never has he been around a team this close, especially over the past two years. Moss agrees and is glad to accomplish so much with his brothers.

“Every day we come into practice, it’s always like something new,” Moss said. “We’re always having fun and always smiling, even though we’re running. We’ve gone through almost everything together. That’s very special to me.”

“Besides the racing aspect to our team, what makes us special is probably the connection between everyone and how close we are during the race and at practice,” Spickert said. “With our team being so close in times, anything can happen so everybody knows they’re really important to the team.”