One race into her junior season, Sisely Mitchell officially put the school record on notice.
Platte County junior Carmen Gentilia runs in the Tim Nixon Invitational on Saturday at Capital Federal Sports Complex in Liberty.
Platte County’s continually superlative junior finished second in the Silver Division of the Tim Nixon Invitational on Saturday at Capital Federal Sports Complex in Liberty in 19 minutes, 5.60 seconds — a new personal-best by exactly 6.5 seconds. Although the Pirates measure the school record based on Missouri State Cross Country Championships performance, she now owns the seventh-fastest time for any girls runner in the program’s history.
In fact, only two runners have recorded faster times: Rebekah Geddes and Ashton Stubbs. Geddes, the school-record holder at 18:44.66 from Class 4 state her junior year of 2016, owns five of the six-fastest times with Stubbs (19:04.00) from the KC Metro Championships in 2008 the only other person in front of Mitchell.
Only Geddes has gone sub-19 minutes (three times), and Mitchell set her previous PR of 19:12.10 at Class 4 state as a sophomore, giving her the third-fastest state time in Platte County history behind only Geddes’ sophomore and junior showings. She graduated early in 2017 and did not compete as a senior.
Mitchell gave up volleyball and hockey last fall to focus on long-distance running and needed just five races to become the fifth in school history to go sub-20 minutes. She continued to improve on her PR the rest of the way and made an even more impressive debut in the opening race of her junior season — now less than 21 seconds away from the fastest time in program history.
Behind Mitchell’s medalist showing, Platte County finished fifth out of seven teams with junior Carmen Gentilia also earning a medal (10th, 20:43.80), about 22 seconds off of a PR from her freshman season. She battled injuries as a sophomore and only returned for the stretch run to become a two-time state qualifier.
Platte County competed as a team at state each of the past four years, and five of the six in the lineup Saturday were on last year’s team along with Mitchell and Gentilia. Pirates junior Marissa Orellana, who went from off the radar to an integral part of the District 4 and state lineup, placed 29th at 23:07.50 — the second-fastest time of her career.
To round out the team score, Platte County junior Alex Beeman came in 37th for the (23:39.30), while sophomore Lily Kytasaari finished right behind in 38th (23:44.00). Madison Palmer, another sophomore, placed 43rd. Only Kytasaari did not run in the postseason a year ago due to club soccer commitments.
Platte County has not run a senior in its varsity lineup since the 2020 state meet. The Pirates had the second-best top two total thanks to Mitchell and Gentilia behind team champion Father Tolton (41) but couldn’t match the top-five scorers for Kearney (58), North Platte (80) or Smithville (101). They finished with a 110 totoal.
