Bishop Carroll girls track wins first state title since 2011 behind three champs
Tess Martin had to leave one championship chase to help the Bishop Carroll girls track and field team build another.
The bar was still waiting for the freshman Friday afternoon at Crossland Stadium, where Martin was locked in a high jump battle with Pittsburg freshman Kyndal Bugni. But so was the 400 relay and Carroll needed Martin’s speed on the track as much as it needed her bounce on apron.
So Martin walked away from the high jump, ran her leg on a 400 relay that broke the school record with a time of 49.09 seconds in prelims, then returned to the high jump competition to finish the most dramatic individual moment of Carroll’s dominant weekend at the Kansas high school state track and field meet.
Two freshmen. One bar. One Class 5A state championship.
Martin cleared 5-6 in a jump-off to beat Bugni and become the first Bishop Carroll girl in program history to win a state championship in the high jump.
“I just knew that I had to keep my nerves down,” Martin said. “I knew the other girl was a freshman too, so the pressure was on her as well. So I knew if I handled the pressure better than she did, then I could win.”
That poise became one of the defining images of Carroll’s first girls track and field team state championship since 2011 and just the second in program history.
By the time the meet closed Saturday, the Golden Eagles had turned the Class 5A team race into a runaway. Carroll won the title with 92½ points, easily clearing runner-up St. James Academy, which finished with 57.
Carroll did it behind three state champions: Martin in the high jump, sophomore Reese Whiteley in the 100 hurdles and junior Lauren DeGroot in the 300 hurdles. But the title was not built on three moments alone. It was built across nearly every section of the meet, from hurdles to distance, sprints to throws, relays to jumps.
Martin’s gold medal simply gave Carroll its most cinematic scene.
She entered the state meet with the second-best high jump mark in 5A this season after clearing a personal-best 5-6. Bugni was the only other jumper in the field who had also cleared at least 5-6 this season, so it was fitting that the title eventually came down to the two freshmen.
Neither gave an inch early. Martin and Bugni both cleared the final three heights on their first attempts, then both missed all three tries when the bar moved to 5-6. That sent the competition to a jump-off.
The bar was lowered to 5-5. Martin cleared. Bugni cleared.
The bar went back to 5-6. This time, Martin found the clearance she had been chasing.
Bugni missed and Martin had made Carroll history.
“That’s when I was like, ‘I’m going to win,’” Martin said. “I just put my foot to the pedal and made sure I was going to win.”
For Carroll girls coach Josh Mans, the winning jump was another example of what has made Martin so advanced at such a young age.
Mans said when the bar reaches the higher heights, Martin has a tendency to sit up too early. She had the height to clear 5-6. Her hips were getting over the bar. But when she tried to rise up too soon, she clipped the bar before she could finish the jump.
Mans’ instruction was simple: keep her head down and get her feet up quickly.
Martin listened, processed the correction and applied it on the next attempt.
“She just exudes a quiet confidence,” Mans said. “I’ve never seen it enter into the side of over-confidence and she doesn’t like to bring attention to herself. She just believes in herself and what she’s been given.”
Martin is billed first as a volleyball player, a standout outside hitter in her age group who brings the same explosive jumping ability to the track. Her athletic range was obvious throughout the state meet. She qualified in the open 100 as a freshman with a season-best time of 12.47, ran on Carroll’s record-breaking 400 relay and later helped the Golden Eagles place third in the 1600 relay.
Mans believes that volleyball background helps explain why Martin did not appear overwhelmed, even while moving between the high jump and the relay.
“I think I was way more nervous than she was,” Mans said. “I think coming from the volleyball background, she doesn’t get fazed by things. She’s used to performing under pressure.”
Carroll had plenty of athletes who answered pressure moments.
Whiteley gave the Golden Eagles another state title in the 100 hurdles, winning in 14.79. DeGroot made that race even more valuable for Carroll by finishing third in 15.31, then came back to win the 300 hurdles in 43.98.
DeGroot was one of the biggest point scorers in the entire meet for Carroll. In addition to her two hurdle medals, she placed fifth in the long jump at 16-11½ and ran on the 1600 relay team that finished third in 4:02.73.
That relay included DeGroot, Emily Melcher, Ashlynn Sauer and Martin, giving Carroll another podium finish late in the meet.
Sauer also delivered a huge individual sprint meet for the Golden Eagles. She placed fifth in the 100 in 12.35, fourth in the 200 in 25.73 and eighth in the 400 in 58.83. Her ability to score in all three sprint races gave Carroll points in critical places.
The Golden Eagles also found points in the throws, where Clare Munn finished second in the javelin with a throw of 127-1. In the triple jump, Caroline Eck tied for sixth at 36-8¾.
Carroll’s distance group gave the team title another foundation. Sophia Thome placed fifth in the 1600 in 5:08.34 and sixth in the 3200 in 11:01.28. Gwendolyn Sattler finished seventh in the 3200, while freshman Nora Thome placed eighth in the same race .The 3200 relay team of Olivia Thome, Melcher, Clare Fouts and Sattler added a second-place finish in 9:34.02.
The 400 relay team of Martin, Brie Jones, Brook Jones and Whiteley entered the final as the top seed after breaking the school record in prelims, then finished third in the final in 49.53.
Martin’s jump-off victory gave Carroll its first girls high jump champion. Whiteley and DeGroot gave Carroll two more individual champions. The relays gave Carroll volume. The distance runners, sprinters, jumpers and throwers filled in the rest.
For Martin, it was a first high school state meet that ended with a school record relay, an individual state title and a team championship trophy.
“I just feel pretty accomplished with all of my work,” Martin said. “Like all of it finally paid off.”
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