In its first full track and field season, Mexico Optimist Hounds Running Club competed against some of the best Missouri and other states had to offer.  

At the Inaugural Mexico Hounds Invite, teams and individual athletes from Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois and Missouri competed in the first club level track meet held in Mexico's history. The Hounds themselves, along with their parents and other volunteers, spent a lot of time preparing for this event from working a variety of field events to sorting through all of the paperwork.

Overall as a team, the Mexico Hounds finished second in the team race behind a very tough East St. Louis Greyhounds team. In the field events, the Hounds scored several gold-medal marks in shotput and javelin.  On the track, the Hounds faced stiff competition at every single distance contested. However, several of the Hounds rose to the occasion and earned some midseason personal-record marks.  

After the Hounds’ home meet, they took a couple of weeks off of competition before heading to Monroe City for a pair of meets. On the first meet of the Monroe City Circuit, it was the hottest day of the year. The Hounds performed well in the heat with nearly everyone taking home a top-six finish in at least one of their events.  

Two days later, the weather cooled off, but the Hounds did not. Numerous PR marks in both running and field events. For most of the Hounds, this was the last meet of the season, and it ended well.  For four of the athletes, they had one more meet: the Show-Me State Games.

The Show-Me State Games is affiliated with a National Congress of Games that gets together every two years and competes in an Olympic-style format at a preselected city. This year, San Diego was selected for the national meet, but since the Hounds had not qualified yet, they had to take care of the first steps in qualifying for the National Meet in 2026 held at Penn State University in Happy Valley, Pennsylvania. To qualify, a competitor has to finish in the top 3 of their event.

The Show-Me Games is a two-day format where all of the athletes 14 and younger compete on Day 1 and the 15 and older athletes on Day 2.  

On Day 1, the Mexico Optimist Hounds had three athletes competing in both running and field events. Starting with the 3,000-meter race, Lydia Bowen finished second in her age group with a time of 18:04, qualifying her for the national meet.  

The next two qualifiers came from the shot put. Zuri Crews and Joanna Bowen would throw extremely well, including Crews’ throw of an impressive 25’ 1”.  Lydia would add another second-place finish in the shot put as well.  Joanna would set a PR in the long jump and earn a bronze medal for her efforts.  

On Day 2, the lone Mexico Hound, Jiles Williams, jumped his best marks in both the triple jump and long jump, earning bronze in both events.  In all, the Mexico Optimist Hounds sent four athletes to qualify for the national meet, and all four of them earned their spot to compete in Pennsylvania. They came away with seven medals in all, along with 4 PRs in their respective events.