As much as Addy Goeckel has been a front-runner , err, hurdler, throughout her career – and having won 52 of her 54 races over the past three years, that’s a lot – the Washington County standout sure doesn’t mind when she has to come from behind.
 
In fact, she thinks it suits her just fine.
 
“Going in in second place, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh! I need to run my best,’” Goeckel said of the rare occasions she’s found herself in that position. “I guess it just happens for me at state.”
 
Goeckel proved as much each of the past two seasons at the State Outdoors Track and Field Championships. Qualifying second in the Class 1A 100 hurdles in both her sophomore and junior seasons, Goeckel found a way to beat top-qualifier Kylie Stapleton of South Gray to the finish line in the finals, winning back-to-back state titles.
 
So this year when she was a distant No. 2 qualifier to Ness City’s Teagin Liggett in the 300 hurdles – an event she’s also won the past two seasons – there wasn’t a bit of panic.
 
“I just kick it in at the state track meet,” Goeckel said. “I’m focused in. I love being here and representing my community. It’s awesome.”
 

 
Awesome is an apt description for Goeckel’s career as she did to Liggett what she’s done to Stapleton in the past and found a way to get to the finish line first. Her third straight title in the 300 hurdles followed Goeckel’s three-peat in the 100 hurdles as the Tiger standout finished her career with sweeps of the 1A hurdles as a sophomore, junior and senior, giving her six state gold medals and making her the most decorated track athlete in school history.
 
“I had a good freshman year, but never in a million years did I think I’d end up winning six gold medals,” said Goeckel, who took fourth in the 100 hurdles and third in the 300 hurdles as a freshman.
 
Following that freshman season, the only losses Goeckel ever suffered at a meet came at the Kansas Relays. But that’s not to say there weren’t moments where even Goeckel wondered if she could come through as she always has.
 
Case in point, the final individual race of her career in Wichita. In qualifying for the finals of the 300 hurdles, Goeckel turned in a 46.57 that was just off her winning times of 46.31 as a junior and 46.20 as a sophomore.
 
That should have been comforting for the Tiger, knowing just a little extra push in the finals would get her down to those title times. Only if she was going to get the three-peat, she was going to have to dip well below her past winning times as Liggett set the standard in qualifying with a 45.06 that was more than a second and a half faster than Goeckel.
 
That gap was so sizable, Goeckel admitted even she wasn’t sure she could close it.
 
“I was going to be happy with second and I had already come to terms with the fact that I might not win it,” Goeckel said. “It’s still an accomplishment getting second.”
 
Midway through the race, it certainly appeared that would be the case with Liggett jumping out to a quick lead through the curve. And with Liggett having already won the 1A 100 title earlier in the day, the likelihood of Goeckel tracking her down over the final 100 seemed nearly impossible.
 
“Even watching that race, she had me cooked halfway through it,” Goeckel said. “It didn’t even look like I would get second at that point. I’ve always more of an endurance runner. I’m far from a sprinter.”
 
The endurance it takes to finish off the 300 hurdles played a factor as Goeckel slowly gained ground on Liggett and just kept on coming. She caught Liggett going into the finals two hurdles and passed her on the final one, holding the Eagle standout off in the sprint to the finish to win by .17 seconds in 44.65 – Goeckel’s career-best time by nearly a second, having run a 45.59 at last year’s Twin Valley League meet.
 
“I think I have a lot of push and those last three hurdles, that’s where I win my races,” Goeckel said. “It’s still hard to believe that I got it done, though. I was completely overjoyed.”
 

 
The 300 hurdles have always come naturally for Goeckel, but she’s more than made her mark in the 100 hurdles as well. And a big part of that has been her rivalry with Stapleton.
 
The two only ever see each other at the state meet, but the showdowns have been legendary.
 
Goeckel qualified second to Stapleton as a sophomore, but came back in the finals to win by .02 seconds. Last year, the script played out the same with Stapleton the top qualifier and Goeckel winning the state title, this time by a more comfortable .33 margin.
 
This year, Goeckel threw out the challenge for Stapleton – who had posted the top 1A time in the regular season with a 15.00 at the SPIAA League meet -- to come get her, qualifying first in 15.42, .24 ahead of Stapleton, who actually qualified third with Dighton’s Lani Speer splitting the two with a 15.63.
 
But Stapleton was unable to take a page out of Goeckel’s book and flip the script in the finals as Goeckel blazed her way to a career-best time of 15.21 to win by .15 seconds over Stapleton.
 

 
“Every year is tough,” Goeckel said. “She’s a spectacular athlete and it’s just happened to work out for me and not for her. But she’s an amazing runner and is going to keep doing great things.”
 
Goeckel also teamed with Alyssa Jueneman, McKenzie Baker and younger sister Anna to finish runner-up in the 1,600 relay, a second behind champion and Twin Valley League rival Hanover. She also was on the 400 relay team that took eighth as Washington County saw its two-year reign over Class 1A come to an end but still come home with a third-place team finish.
 

 
STATE FINALE GOES SWIMMINGLY FOR HANOVER’S HIGHLY DECORATED JUENEMAN
 
For as much as Anna Jueneman is on the go – not just in being a three-sport athlete at Hanover, but the manner in which she goes after each of those sports as well – sitting idle just didn’t sit well with the Wildcat senior.
 
So when a lingering strain in her left hamstring shut her down for the first half of her track season this spring, she simply refused to let it slow her down.
 
Mind you, she wasn’t pushing things with her hamstring as Jueneman missed almost her entire senior track season before returning at the May 9 Grizzly Invitational in Rock Hills. But at the same time, she found an outlet to make sure that when she did return to the track, she was ready to hit the ground running.
 
“I was doing PT three days a week, which helped,” Jueneman said. “But I also went swimming. You can’t really feel anything in the water so I would just work my leg and workup my aerobic system and all that stuff. I went swimming a lot.”
 
With no pool in Hanover, Jueneman made the 30-minute trip to a health center in Fairbury (Neb.) on a routine basis. The combination of her physical therapy and pool work had Jueneman in peak form for her final state track meet and she made the most of it.
 
Jueneman won the Class 1A 400 for the third straight year and the 200 for the second straight year. She also anchored Hanover’s 1,600 relay to a victory, giving her a triple crown showing in her final state appearance.
 
In her decorated career, Jueneman helped Hanover’s volleyball team to two Class 1A Division II state championships and two runner-up finishes and the basketball team to three straight 1A Division II state titles. On the track, she racked up five individual gold, three relay golds and one team championship, that coming her freshman year.
 

 
“It’s a lot of hard work paying off,” she said. “Honestly, it’s crazy to me winning six state titles, and then all those in track. Most people would dream of just winning one. But you put in the hard work and another thing is us girls really click together every year. At a small school, you kind of have a new group every year and we’ve done a great job of bonding.”
 
If Jueneman has a bond with one event in track, it’s the 400. She got put in the event in junior high and the more she ran it, the more it grew on her.
 
It didn’t hurt that she has had nearly unmatched success in the event. Throughout her career, she’s only lost in the 400 once, that coming at state her freshman year when she finished runner-up to Kiowa County’s Addi Heinson, who swept the Class 1A titles in the 100, 200 and 400 that season.
 
“Junior high, yes I like it and same for freshman and sophomore year,” she said. “But my junior and senior year, it honestly became my favorite event. If you ask any of the other girls, they’d probably say I’m crazy, but I actually love getting out there and competing in the 400. I love it.”
 
Jueneman comfortably won her first title in the event as a sophomore in 2023, beating Twin Valley League rival Kiersten Tholstrup of Washington County by a second and a half. Last year, it was another second and a half win over a TVL rival, this time Centralia’s Tatum Kramer.
 
In her swansong this year, got the best test since her freshman year as Western Plains sophomore Jaelyn Spangler became her first state opponent in three years to also go under a minute in the event. But Jueneman powered her way to the three-peat with a time of 58.72, beating Spangler’s 59.63 by almost a second and coming within a half second of her career best of 58.23 despite the race being just her fourth of the season.
 
“Honestly, it’s more of a mental race than it is physical,” Jueneman said. “It’s knowing how to run the race. I don’t feel like I can go out and sprint the whole thing. So I kind of coast on the back stretch and just knowing how to run it is a big thing.”
 
After getting her first championship in the 200 a year ago when she out-dueled TVL rival Sevy Wurtz of Clifton-Clyde, Jueneman’s path to a repeat appeared much tougher this season with the return of an old rival.
 
Oxford’s Makhila Maupin had edged Jueneman by .38 seconds for the 200 crown in 2023 before Oxford moved up to Class 2A last year where the Wildcat speedster swept the 100 and 200 titles.
 
With Oxford back in 1A this season and Maupin the 1A leader in both the 100 and 200, Jueneman had to deal with her and Wurtz, who beat her at regionals.
 
But during Friday’s qualifying for the 400, Maupin went down with a leg injury that ended her state meet, opening the door for a Jueneman-Wurtz showdown for the second straight year. Jueneman sent a message in prelims she was ready, running a career-best 25.51 while Flinthills’ Harlee Randall entered the title mix by qualifying second in 25.57.
 
With four runners under 26 seconds in the prelims – Kiowa County’s Kendal Blanton running a 25.86 and Wurtz a 25.96 – Jueneman answered the call in the finals, just missing her prelim time with a 25.56 but holding off Randall, who was second in 25.71.
 
Jueneman capped her career by teaming with Gracie Bruna, Kamryn O’Dell and Nora Heiman to win the 1,600 relay in 4:04.29, a second-plus ahead of Washington County (4:05.46).
 

 
Wurtz ended up taking third in the 200 and also came up short of repeating as the 1A state champion in the 100 as Ness City’s Taegin Liggett scorched her way to a 1A state meet record 12.25 to beat Wurtz by .22 seconds for the crown, flipping last year’s finish when Wurtz went 12.37 to beat Liggett by .22 seconds.
 
But Wurtz didn’t come home without a gold medal. She successfully defended her state title in the long jump, going 18-2 on her second attempt of the competition to win by four inches over South Gray’s Kylie Stapleton, who had a best of 17-10. Wurtz had three jumps over 18-1 or better.
 

 
BURLINGTON’S HOBACK GETS HER MARK IN 3A 100 HURDLES REPEAT
 
Having set her sights on Katie Guevel’s school record in the 100 hurdles for, well, pretty much her entire career, Keely Hoback felt it was coming.
 
“Most definitely,” Hoback said of Guevel’s Burlington school record of 14.10. “I’ve been working for this my whole career and really this senior year.”
 
As much as that record has been on Hoback’s mind, so to has another record Guevel set during her stellar career that saw her win the Class 3A 100 hurdles title all four years. That mark was Guevel’s Class 3A state meet record, a 14.27 the standout ran in the preliminaries of the 2007 state meet – a time she topped with a 14.18 in the finals but was set with a more than allotted wind speed and thus didn’t stand.
 
Following the state meet, Guevel will still be the standard for future Wildcats to hit at Burlington as Hoback fell short of taking that record down. But Hoback will be the standard for future Class 3A runners to meet at the state meet as the Wildcat senior got Guevel’s state-meet record not once, but twice.
 
Hoback ran a 14.22 in Friday’s preliminaries to clip .05 seconds off Guevel’s 2007 meet record. For good measure, she came back in the finals and matched Guevel’s wind-aided mark from 2007, running a 14.18 to take her second straight Class 3A 100 hurdles title.
 
“It means a lot,” Hoback said. “I’ve been working so hard for it and to see that record every day, I just went at it and went at it. And I finally got it.”
 

 
In chasing such a lofty record, it typically takes a little push from a rival to get it done. And though Pioneer League rival Ellie Strain of Wellsville has been on Hoback’s heels for the past two seasons, she hasn’t been really able to come close to really putting the heat on.
 
In winning her first state title last year, Hoback finished .80 seconds ahead of Strain in the finals. This year in setting her meet record, the margin was a .63-second victory.
 
“It’s just dedication and pushing myself because I know it’s just going to be me up there,” Hoback said. “I just went for it and I succeeded.”
 
Hoback’s bid for a second individual gold saw her be a distant chaser in the 200 to Hesston’s Ashley Lehman, who set 3A state meet records in the 100, 200 and 400. Hoback took third, more than a second behind Lehman, with Hoisington’s Marley Bittel in between.
 
But Hoback did come away from the state meet with another gold.
 

 
She teamed with Alexa Ratzlaff, Olivia Lyons and Haylei Potter to win the 400 relay with the Wildcats finishing in 49.19 seconds, just ahead of league rival Wellsville’s 49.46.
 
Lyons and Potter also teamed with Mac Medlock and Lyra Codney to close the state meet with a win in the 1,600 relay, finishing in 4:04.15, beating Scott City by nearly two seconds (4:05.94).
 

 
While Strain finished runner-up to Hoback in the 100 hurdles, she upheld her position as the top 300 hurdler in 3A this season. The only 3A hurdler under 46 seconds in the 300s this season, Strain cruised to victory by more than a second over Perry-Lecompton’s Macie Corcoran, winning in 45.55.
 

 
LIKE A BOSS: OSAGE CITY FRESHMAN FOLLOWS IN SIBLINGS’ FOOTSTEPS WITH STATE TITLE
 
It’s not a given that being a Boss from Osage City guarantees an eventual state track championship.
 
It only seems that way.
 
Four years ago, Landon Boss got things started, winning the first of two straight boys Class 3A state championships in the javelin. Last year, Lexi Boss got one of her own, winning the girls Class 3A discus crown.
 
And now Kaelyn Boss has taken her place in the family legacy. With a throw of 136-11 in the javelin, Boss claimed the Class 3A state title in the event to join her siblings as state track champions.
 
“There’s a little bit of pressure there,” Kaelyn said of keeping the family title tradition going. “But not much. I just put my faith in God and let him lead me. He already has a path and so I just follow his path.”
 
Whereas Landon and Lexi each got their first state titles as juniors, Kaelyn is just a freshman. She made noise last year as an eighth-grader when she posted one of the top middle school throws in the nation in the discus with a toss of 132-11.
 
That performance led to Boss entering high school with expectations already placed upon her. But she said whatever those were, she really didn’t feel affected by them.
 
“I had expectations for myself,” she said. “I expected to make it (to state) and medal in each of my events and then become a state champion.”
 
While she gained her notoriety in middle school in the discus, the path to a state title in that event was one of the most difficult in the state. The Class 3A girls discus field boasted four of the top-five throwers in the state overall.
 
Topping that list was older sister, Lexi, who won the state title a year ago with a throw of 139-4. Lexi had only gotten better this season, breaking her own school record on multiple occasions and delivering the No. 7 all-time throw in Kansas history in mid-season with a toss of 158-6.
 
In addition, 2023 champion Tatum Seyfert was back for her senior season and ranked No. 3 in the state, sandwiched between Nemaha Central’s Zoey Sudbeck and Cami Dalinghaus. Kaelyn, meanwhile, sat sixth on the state’s overall list with a season-best of 141-11.
 
Neither Boss sister came within 15 feet of their season’s best at state with Lexi throwing just 142-5 and seeing Seyfert get back her title with a winning mark of 147-7. Kaelyn, meanwhile, only had a best of 127-10 and finished seventh.
 
“It was definitely loaded,” Kaelyn said. “I definitely felt I could have done better, but I’m glad I got a medal.”
 
Kaelyn’s biggest strides this season had come in the javelin, only having a best of 106-8 in middle school. She began this season with a throw of 123-2 at the season-opening Lyndon Spring Relays but saw Lexi set the early standard with a school-record throw of 130-2 at same meet.
 
Kaelyn began creeping toward her sister’s record as the season went along and finally broke it with a throw of 133-9 at the Wellsville Red Bud Classic in early May.
 
“It was a great competition throughout the season,” Kaelyn said. “She had a big throw at the beginning of the season and I didn’t break it until the end of the season and it was just kind of back and forth. It was a lot of fun.”
 
Kaelyn finished the regular season with five straight wins in the javelin and then made it six straight at regionals. At state, Lexi fired the first salvo, throwing a career-best 132-7 on her first attempt while Kaelyn opened with a 131-6.
 
But on her next throw, Kaelyn unleashed a career-best 136-11 that held up as the winning mark. Lexi wound up third with Beloit’s Autumn Lopez splitting the sisters with a throw of 135-8 on her fifth attempt.
 
“It felt really good and I knew as soon as I let it go, it was a big one,” Kaelyn said of her winning toss. “I was super-nervous at the start of the flight and as soon as I let that one go, all the nerves went away. It feels great and now I just have to keep working to get all my fundamentals down and go for more.”
 
Boss also finished eighth in the shot put, coming one inch from her PR in that event.
 
With three years left and the bulk of the competition that finished ahead of her at state graduating, Kaelyn has a chance to make her family legacy in track the greatest of the Boss family.
 

 
OTHER NORTH CENTRAL KANSAS GIRLS CHAMPIONS
 

• Clay Center’s Lauren Smith won her second straight Class 4A 800 title, defending the title she won a year ago. Smith finished in 2:15.55 to beat Baldwin’s Kami Moore by more than three seconds.

 

• Having re-written Abilene’s record books in both sprint events, Renatta Heintz got the state title to go with them, taking the 4A crown in the 200. Heintz, who finished runner-up to Andale’s Rylee Meyer by .08 seconds in the 100 earlier in the day, denied Meyer a sweep of the 4A sprints by flipping things in the 200. Heintz finished in 24.96 to beat Meyer by .17 seconds.

 

• Wabaunsee fell short of sweeping the 1,600 and 3,200 relays as it did a year ago, but still defended its title in one of them. The foursome of Grace Zeller, Talen Orton, Isabelle Stuhlsatz and Payton Wurtz blew away the 2A field in the 3,200 relay, finishing in 9:45.89 to beat runner-up Ellinwood by nearly 14 seconds. Their bid in the 1,600 came up four seconds short with Moundridge knocking the Chargers off for the title.

 

• Fourth in the Class 1A pole vault last year, Onaga’s Lillie Weiser out-dueled Twin Valley League rival Jordi Fahey of Clifton-Clyde for the title this season. The duo were two of three vaulters that cleared 10-6, but Weiser got the title on fewer misses with Fahey having missed twice at 9-0 and third-place finisher Kallie Richardson missing her first attempt at 10-6 while Weiser and Fahey both made theirs.

 

• Rock Creek’s foursome of Kennedy Whaley, Karli Reitz, Kylee Frazee and Ayla Klingenberg captured the Class 4A title in the 1,600 relay, finishing in 4:02.24 to beat Rose Hill by just over a second.

 

• Junction City’s Gracie Erichsen picked the best time to have her best day in the shot put, capturing the Class 6A state title. Going into state with a career best of 38-2 from regionals the previous week, Erichsen rode the momentum and had five throws farther than that at state, including three over 40 feet. Her best of 40-9.25 was a full foot farther than runner-up Jorryn Hall of Manhattan, who went 39-8.