Dynasty Restored

Custer High School’s cross country teams once again brought home trophies from the State A Cross County Championships in Sioux Falls on Saturday. The girls team placed three runners in the top 15 to clinch the top spot in the 15-team field from across the state and the boys team was runner-up behind favorite Sioux Falls Christian (SFC). Custer also received the Combined Team Champions plaque awarded by the South Dakota Cross Country and Track & Field Coaches Association.  
The win for the Custer girls was the third in the last four years and the fifth championship in the past seven years. In addition, Custer has won the Combined Team Champions award every year but 2020 since 2015. Senior Kadense Dooley has been on four state champion teams and has medaled at state every year since she was in seventh grade.
Junior Ramsey Karim finished just seconds behind race winner Ellie Maddox, an eighth grader from SFC, to take second at state. Karim’s time was 18:51.54.
Dooley finished fifth in a time of 18:59.74. Early in the season Karim was the regular frontrunner for Custer, but for the past three weeks Dooley has taken the top spot.
“They train together, they push each other in workouts, they do all their long runs together,” said head coach Karen Karim in explaining the order of the girls’ finishes, “and on any given day one of them will feel better than the other. That’s just the nature of the sport.”
“Kadense was pretty determined that she wanted to go out hard early and push the pace,” said Karim, “and the only person who even attempted to stay with her was Ramsey. The other people just kind of sat back and I think they were maybe expecting someone else to be the front runner and they didn’t pay a lot of attention to our girls. Kadense was out there quite a ways and Ramsey was trailing her by a couple of seconds and they did that for the first loop.”
However, Karim said in the second mile of the race Karim passed Dooley, leading their coach to think for a while “we’d end up first and second.”
“I think Kadense paid the price of not having great kicking legs at the end of the race and got passed by a couple of other girls,” said Karim. “I would say that’s a courageous way to run a race, to go out and put it on the line from the beginning. I was super proud of her. I would have been just as excited if Kadense was in the same spot Ramsey was or if either one of them had won.”
Karim said after the race her daughter, Ramsey seemed amazed she had had almost won the race.
“You’ve been telling Kadense and me all year that one of us could win state,” she told her mom, “I just never believed.”
Senior Eva Studt ran the course in a time of 19:33.01, setting a new personal record and finishing in 14th place overall. Karim said Studt ran significantly faster than she had at the state meet last year.
The fourth scorer for the Custer girls was sophomore Brit Wheeler, who finished in 29th place with a time of 20:22.07, dropping a full 40 seconds off her previous time.
“Brit ran great,” said Karim. “She went right after Eva and followed the race plan that we had talked about and believed in herself and what I told her she could do. It helped us immensely.”
Eighth grader Keira Alfson, running her very first varsity race at the state meet, finished in 55th place with a time of 21:13.10. Karim said Alfson “looked great” and noted her time was good enough so that if they would have had to score her instead of Wheeler, Custer still would have won the race.  
The sixth runner for the Wildcats was seventh grader Mattea Marshall, who finished 82nd in 22:15.96.  
In the boys race it was again senior Miles Ellman taking the top spot for the Wildcats. Ellman finished fifth in a time of 16:41.69, followed by junior Gage Grohs, who finished eighth in 16:52.12.
“Our boys went out and just attacked that course,” said Karim, “and put themselves in a position to win. If they could have held the position they were in after the first 800 meters we probably would have won the whole meet.”
“Miles ran a really smart race and finished strong,” said Karim. “He pulled away from Gage and set himself where he needed to be.”
The next two runners to cross the finish line for Custer were senior Preston Drew, 18th, 17:17.16 and Drew Lehman, 33rd, 17:53.35.
“Preston and Drew went out and put themselves in a medaling position,” commented Karim. She said Drew ran his best race in the last two years and Lehman set a new personal record, finishing under 18 minutes for the first time ever.
“He’s just a sophomore and he’s just gonna get better and better,” said the coach.
The fifth runner for Custer was senior Sterling Sword, who ran the race in 18:47.38 and finished in 72nd place. Sophomore Kai Rusch finished 104th in 19:45.76.
Karim said five of the six boys in the race set new personal records.
While hesitating to say she was surprised by the outcome of the races, Karim admits she was nervous going into the state meet.
“I knew exactly what my kids had potential to do but there wasn’t a cushion,” she said. “I really needed those four kids to step up. You couldn’t have a hiccup with one of your kids having a bad race. I was pleased that it turned out the way it did.”
“I felt like our kids really had their legs under them and they felt pretty fresh and good at this meet,” noted Karim.
She believes that is evidence of the number of miles the runners put in during the summer months.
“I was happy to hear my kids say ‘Oh, I felt great! My legs haven’t felt this good all year,’” she said.
With losing five seniors from her team next spring, Karim said she hopes the younger runners coming up will put in the same kind of effort in the offseason.
“It will be a tremendous rebuilding year next year,” said Karim, adding there will be some “pretty big shoes to fill with Kadense and Eva and the same on the boys side with Miles and Preston.” All four seniors were medalists at state.
While acknowledging she has a number of younger runners coming up, especially among the boys, Karim said the students will have to put in work over the next year in order to take the place of the graduating seniors.
“I hope they understand how much work the older kids have put in to get to the place they were,” she said. “They’re gonna have to do that in the summer months in order to get set up for a good cross country season next year. Do we have the potential? Yes, but we have some big shoes to fill.”
 “I love these kids!” said Karim in conclusion. “I have coached several of them for years and I was so proud of them and happy for them!”