Coaches decided to change the normal schedule in an effort to preview an important course, and Andrew Johnson must have liked what he saw — a lot.
Platte County’s continually improving junior earned the first race victory of his career in Saturday’s Sock It to Cancer Grain Valley Invitational in Grain Valley, posting a career-best and course record time of 15 minutes, 57.90 seconds. He finished second in each of his two prior races, including a PR a week earlier before knocking nearly 16 full seconds off of that time at The Nest.
Johnson impressively posted the second sub-16 minute time in program history and the first since Nathan Straubel set the school record in the 2015 Missouri Class 4 Missouri State Cross Country Championships at 15:50.06. To challenge that mark, Johnson will need to post a time on the state course, but his latest run fully illustrated his progression from C team at the start of his freshman year to a two-time state qualifier and now one of the most accomplish runners in program history.
Plenty of time remains to build on this performance, which led Platte County to a third-place finish out of seven teams in the Pink Division on the course that will host the upcoming Suburban Blue Division Conference Championships. Raymore-Peculiar won the team title, while Grain Valley — the Pirates’ likely top competition for the league title this weekend — finished second at 46 points.
Platte County was 10 back at 56 with junior Kade Meinke (sixth, 17:06.50) and senior Kage Audas (12th, 17:33.70) also in medalist positions, while sophomore Tanner Jenks (17th, 17:47.40) and freshman Blake Herron (20th, 18:02.50) rounded out the team score. All five factoring runners set personal-bests in the process for the breakthrough performance the Pirates have been seeking since starting out the season fast in the Tim Nixon Invitational and then struggling to return to those low times.
In fact, Herron just narrowly edged out fellow freshman Donavin Ness in a photo finish. Ness posted a career-best 18:02.60 to finish 21st, while seniors Tanner Johnson and Aspen Nelson were 25th (18:40.40) and 29th (19:02.6), respectively.
Platte County suddenly has depth with sophomore Ben Letcher currently out of the lineup, and Tanner Johnson pushed outside the top seven after being part of the Pirates’ 2021 Suburban Conference Blue Division championship team and qualifying for state as part of a second straight team berth. Andrew Johnson finished second last year in the Blue Division behind graduated teammate Andrew Early, now running at Pittsburg State.
Andrew Johnson will be looking to make it two straight individual champions while chasing another team conference title. Audas, Meinke and Tanner Johnson were 10th through 12th last season in a bunched finish, and all four were all-conference performers — even Tanner Johnson who was the No. 6 runner and did not factor into the team score. Letcher placed 20th.
Grain Valley will now be the favorite with William Chrisman, Raytown and Belton the other schools in the five-team field with Platte County.
Gans Creek Classic
Johnson placed an impressive second out of 302 runners in the Blue Division race last Saturday in Columbia, Missouri.
The promising preview of the Missouri State Cross Country Championships course saw Johnson run a then-PR of 16:13.70, bettering his previous mark of 16:26.10 set in the season-opening Tim Nixon Invitational. The time was also more than 10 seconds better than what he ran on the same course in the Class 4 state race as sophomore and unofficially ranks as the seventh-fastest time in program history behind only the top five times from Straubel’s memorable senior season in 2015 plus the PR he set the following week.
Behind Johnson, Platte County finished sixth out of 37 teams in the Blue Division. The Pirates’ team total of 266 was just 20 off of fourth-place Park Hill South.
Meinke continued to keep his hold on the No. 2 spot with a 32nd-place showing in 17:26.60, while Audas was 65th in 18:09.00. Jenks turned in the then-best time of his budding sophomore season at 18:11.70 to place 67th, while Ness rounded out the finishes counting for the team score. He placed 110th (18:46.60). Other runners for the Pirates included Herron (130th, 19:02.70), Nelson (173rd, 19:41.40), junior Scott Sellers (180th, 19:45.40), Tanner Johnson (214th, 20:23.00) and senior Mason McBratney (239th, 21:06.50).
