Fall Sports Athletes Compete In Post-Season Competition

Ana Peralta, Reporter

This year several fall sports athletes had success throughout the whole season. In cross country, two racers make it to the state meet, freshman Emma McCormick and senior Jake Beauchamp. 

McCormick took 78th place, dropping three minutes off her best time. She also broke the school girls record with a time of 21:36.80. Beauchump made it to state for the fourth time in his cross country career, finishing 11th. 

“This is a really huge deal especially for 259 schools because only a few qualified from Wichita 259, so it’s a really big deal. It’s a big deal for Southeast because … we haven’t had a girl qualify for six or seven years so it’s really awesome that [McCormick] did it, especially as a Freshman,” head coach Emily Russel said. “And then Jake is a four time state qualifier so he’s just had an amazing career and this is a great year to end his season and his career with cross country.”

 Beauchump has had a very successful career in cross country and is looking to continue his career in college. “My high school career was pretty good. I made it to state for cross country all four years I could,” he said. “I got within 30 seconds of the school record and I was a state medalist which I think is a pretty good career. Right now I’m talking to a few coaches. I don’t really know where I’m going yet but I’m trying to figure it out.” 

 And for McCormick, running at state for the first time was a great experience. “It all went pretty good. I liked running off campus. I just expected what happened, really,” she said.

Golf also had a great season, with one golfer making it to state for the first time in many years. 

“So we [had] one player qualify for postseason, her name is Reese Hawkins. She’s actually a Northeast Magnet student,” head coach Steven Kretz said. “It was her first year on the team. She is the first Wichita Southeast golfer to make it to state in over 30 years, so it’s been a while since we had one … I wasn’t necessarily surprised [because] she’s been the top Wichita golfer in the city all season. If you take out Bishop Carroll and Kapaun, the two private Catholic schools, out of all the Wichita schools she’s the number one golfer.” 

 Kretz has been optimistic and hopeful of the team’s future and future successes.

“We’re going to have her for hopefully another three seasons and build a team and maybe in the future we can have the team make it to state and not just her as an individual,” Kretz said. “The team started off great this season, not only Reese played well but we also had freshman Haily Moore who goes to Southeast as well, so I think in a long term the team is going to have a lot of success lead by Reese Hawkins and Haily Moore.”