Irish’s Keegan #1, Ortega key
But Knoxville Catholic’s Tony Ortega “was the number six guy who broke the tie,” finishing ahead of McCallie’s No. 6 runner to break a 62-62 tie and allow the Fighting Irish to claim the program’s third state crown — also third for head coach Sean O’Neil in his 19th season with KCHS — but first in the always-tough Division II-AA realm as accomplished Thursday, Nov. 7, at the Sanders Ferry Park course.
“We’ve been ranked pretty highly, so we knew we had a good shot at winning it,” O’Neil said. “But McCallie had won five years in a row, and they’ve got a great program, so we knew it was going to be tough to take them down.
“But we did what we’ve been doing all year, and guys went out and ran tough,” he added. “We really focus on our team culture ... we ran for each other and barely managed to come out on top.
“...They’ll show up and race the same way no matter what.”
Irish star runner Keegan Smith, a senior, won his second individual state crown (also as a freshman in 2021), finishing this race at 14:59.16. “He really was just focused on winning,” O’Neil said. “He’d been sick for the last week and still isn’t 100 percent yet. So, he just wanted to put himself toward the front and see if he could pull it out in the end.
“He’s been a little frustrated the last couple of years coming up short,” O’Neil added about Smith. “He really wanted this one. ... It’s a great way to finish off his last state meet.”
Also making All-State (top 15) were junior Radek Molchan (seventh at 15:43.99) and sophomore Cade Duncanson earning 11th (16:03.01).
“And then we had two freshmen step up and finish fourth and fifth for us: Reid Bannister (21st overall) and Evan Van de Griff (22nd overall),” the coach said. “They really pulled it out for us in the end.”
About the air-tight team finish, “I knew it was close watching it; I couldn’t tell who had the edge — it turned out even closer than I thought,” O’Neil said. “The results aren’t instantaneous, so we had to wait for them to tabulate the scores.
“It was a pretty tense, probably 15 minutes or so, while we were waiting for the final results,” the Fighting Irish coach added.
