YOUNG BUT EXPERIENCED KEY C/G EAGLE HARRIERS
- writingwithwilldur
- Sep 1
- 2 min read
DIEKER, MCMANNIS LED 2025 RUNNERS
By Staff
CANTON – The majority of the Canton/Galva cross country teams were freshmen in 2024, and now two have state championship experience and all have enthusiasm to make 2025 a big jump forward for the Eagle program.
Led by Tina McMannis, who heads into her third season as head coach, the Eagles look to improve the number of runners making it through regionals to move on to the state meet.
Carrying the leadership role for the Eagles will be Jaycob Dieker for the boys and Faith McMannis, both of whom qualified for the 2024 state championships as freshman in 2024 with Dieker finishing 37th in the boy’s division, and McMannis placing 39th running in the girl’s division. Both ran personal record times at the state meet with Dieker cruising in at 17:54.65 and McMannis finishing with a time of 22:06.55.
“We had a strong finish to the 2024 season with our boys’ team just missing a qualification as a team,” pointed out coach McMannis. “We had two freshman state qualifiers while all of our athletes made huge improvements in run times throughout the season.”
Running with Dieker on the boys’ team in 2024 were Aaron Long and Everett Schmidt, both of whom scored personal best runs at the league meet where Long ran 20:41.31 while just missing state in placing 13th, and Schmidt finished 25th running 23:05.84.
After running 16th at the league meet with a run of 20:14.30, Corbin Parson has decided to be involved with other activities for his junior year.
Coach McMannis has listed Christian Rich and Jonas Friesen, both sophomores, will be joining the boys’ squad this fall, giving them number to score as a team at meets in 2025.
Faith McMannis is still the only one running for the Lady Eagles and will be looking to make a run at the state and regional titles where she finished 4th and 10th, respectively in 2024.
Concluding her reflections on the upcoming season, coach McMannis explained, “We are looking to build on our strengths from last season and work to continue improving our run times. Our team is young but experienced and adding two new boys to the team should give the Eagles a good chance at some team placings this season and possibly a team trip to the state meet as well. Looking toward the future, we have several junior high athletes who will be competing this season, so the future of Canton/Galva cross county looks very promising.”
2025 EAGLE CROSS COUNTRY SCHEDULE:
Wednesday, September 3 = at Tescott
Thursday, September 11 = host meet in Hesston
Thursday, September 18 = at Herington
Thursday, September 25 = at Marion
Thursday, October 2 = host meet at Harvey County East Lake
Thursday, October 9 = at Goessel
Thursday, October 16 = HOPL/WSL Challenge Meet in Harvey County
Saturday, October 25 = State Class 1A Regionals
Saturday, November 1 = State Class 1A Championships
(The Staff covering McPherson County Activities can be reached by email at macks.people.places@gmail.com)
Comments