Notre Dame’s Lauren Eftink finishes second in XC state championships

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Notre Dame’s Lauren Eftink nearly extended her recent winning streak.

The senior had won her past three races headed into the MSHSAA State Cross Country Championships on Saturday.

She ran her best time in her final race and ended up finishing in second place in the Class 3 finals, running 18:29.70. She was 2.7 seconds behind Southern Boone County’s Alex Volkart on Saturday for the title. Volkart, a Tulsa pledge, repeated as the state champion with her win.

“I was oddly very calm before the race, which is not normally how I am,” Eftink said. “It was kind of surreal; it’s my senior year and my fourth time running at state and my last time running here. I tried to soak it up and tried to enjoy to the race.”

Eftink’s time was 14 seconds faster than her winning time last week at the Class 3 District 1 meet. Prior to that, Eftink had won the Farmington Invitational and the SEMO Conference meet – going a perfect 3-for-3 in October races.

The last time that Eftink didn’t win? That was on the same course on Sept. 23, when she was 17th at the Gans Creek Classic, which was essentially a state preview for most schools. At that race, she ran 19:31.70 – meaning she cut a whole minute from her time.

Eftink held back a little from the start of the finals and was in 22nd place after running the first kilometer in 3 minutes, 39 seconds. She picked up the pace after that and ran 3:33 and put herself in fourth place. From there, she jockeyed for position with Volkart, St. Michael the Archangel’s Elsa Henry and St. Charles West’s Brianna Krueger.

“People were battling a lot,” she said. “We were really moving and there was a lot of movement, especially from 2K to about 4K. I knew it would be fast and everyone in the races before had been running PRs and I was excited and ready to run.”

Eftink closed with a 3:39 on her final stretch and passed Krueger, who was in second place.

The Bulldogs had two runners on the all-state podium after sophomore Lily Coy took 26th by running 19:49.1. This was the first year MSHSAA expanded the all-state cutoff from 25th to 30th.

Her time was a new personal record and the first time she ran sub-20 minutes. Compared to the Gans Creek Classic in September, Coy cut 40 seconds off of her time.

As a team, the Bulldogs placed 10th with 247 points. Of the seven runners in the field, the only runner the team will lose to graduation is Eftink.

“I’m super happy; It’s really an honor and blessing we got here (as a team),” Eftink said.

Kolby Grimes and Lily Carr are juniors, Anna Turner and Coy are sophomores, while freshmen Maria Avila Henao and Brynnan Grimes ran at state for the first time.