Lawrence’s Schwartz picks “best parts” of previous races to take 7th at state, positions himself near top of next year’s 6A returners; Garrett sings ‘bye-bye’ to high school XC career with her 38th-place finish in 1st, final state outing

Mac Moore/Lawrence Sports

Lawrence’s Oliver Schwartz runs across the bridge leading to Cemetery Hill during the 6A boys race of the state championship cross country meet at Rim Rock Farm.

Lawrence High junior Oliver Schwartz already had six chances to plan for competing at the Rim Rock Farm course north of Lawrence before running there again in this year’s 6A boys race at the state meet.

Between those experiences and the rest of the races he ran this season, Schwartz describes his strategy in a way that sounds like he assembled his own Frankstein’s monster of a strategy.

“I kind of just took the best parts from all my other races that I was happy with,” Schwartz said. “I put them all together, just stayed calm and controlled. I went out slow, then picked up and picked off people and just finished hard.”

Schwartz clearly picked a winning strategy. He set his career personal record time of 16:10.97, earning himself a seventh-place finish.

Schwartz was the only Lawrence runner in the boys race, while senior Andie Garrett competed solo in the 6A girls race. Garrett closed out her high school cross country career with a time of 20:10.07 to take 38th place in her first and final state outing.

Lawrence head coach Kyle Morgison said he and the team could not be more proud of the results for both of the team’s runners at state.

“Schwartz came in and accomplished his goal of top 10 that he set for himself at the beginning of the season,” Morgison said, adding emphasis on how Schwartz had everything come together at the end of his race. “We couldn’t be more proud of (Garrett) doing that and accomplishing the goal she set out to do.”

Mac Moore/Lawrence Sports

Lawrence’s Andie Garrett runs the final straightaway heading to the finish line during the 6A girls race of the state championship cross country meet at Rim Rock Farm.

Schwartz also pointed to the last stretch of his race, especially from around the two-mile mark and heading over the bridge that leads to Cemetery Hill, as being the section of the course where he really worked his way up the leaderboard.

“I got a lot of people there,” Schwartz said. “Then after the bridge was also a big point of making sure I kept my speed going up, and then I worked my way up and got people there, too.

“From there, (he’s thinking) ‘I might as well just go for everything I can’ and I managed to get two people after that.”

Morgison described the final push by Schwartz to go from already achieving his top-10 goal to finishing seventh as being “icing on the cake.”

“Finishing the way he finished, just all out there, collapsing at the line, just nothing left to give,” Morgison said. “That was the way he wanted to finish and that’s exactly what he did.”

Although both Lawrence runners had to go through a different experience competing as the lone Lion in each of their races, it didn’t end up affecting either’s race strategy all that much.

Schwartz specifically had already gone through the experience of running solo at state when he did the same thing as a sophomore during last year’s state meet. He credited that experience as being a major factor in helping his performance this time around.

“Having the team there, I still talk to them and at the end of the day, I do race for myself,” Schwartz said. “So it’s just getting that mentality and just having my teammates around me up until (the race starts).

“So I think it wasn’t too hard, but there’s definitely things you just had to stay very controlled in what you were thinking.”

Mac Moore/Lawrence Sports

Lawrence’s Oliver Schwartz stands on the top row of the medal stand for the 6A boys race at the state championship cross country meet at Rim Rock Farm.

As for Garrett, Morgison said she’s already grown accustomed to using a race strategy that separated her from the rest of her teammates.

“(Garrett) was kind of in a league of her own this year,” Morgison said. “She was at the front most races. So I think that mentality coming in, it was familiar to her.”

Although both runners were alone in the race, they weren’t alone on the course. Morgison said the team ended up with around a dozen runners between the boys and girls who showed up to support Schwartz and Garrett in their races. This Lawrence fan section was also decked out in t-shirts adorned with runners’ faces on them, among other interesting ways of showing support.

“When my teammates, they all made shirts with our names and all that stuff, that’s when it kind of hit for me,” Garrett said. “To see I had that support system was really nice.

“But to see my family and coaches and my friends, all cheering me on, it was kind of like, ‘Wow, I really won’t be back.’ That’s when it all kind of started to hit.”

When those feelings of nostalgia hit for Garrett after her final race, her mind went to all the memories from her time running with her fellow Lions. It reminded her of all the times her and her teammates traveled to and from events, and the ways they would pass the time. It reminded her of one specific ritual, one which is related to the music played during those trips.

Whenever the runners for the Lawrence High cross country teams can’t decide on what genre of music they want to hear on the drive to and from events, Lions head coach Kyle Morgison said it becomes assistant coach Jacob Kucza who takes over the duties of working the aux cord.

“Coach Kucza usually puts on some country, and that pretty much motivates us,” Morgison said.

But when asked if the “us” he referred to includes his student-athletes and what their response was to listening to Kucza’s go-to choice of Conway Twitty, Morgison was less willing to commit to the description of “motivating” as the reception from the kids.

“I don’t know, actually,” Morgison said. “They probably zone out, just stuck to their phones. But I liked it. So it’s nice to ease the tension, or whatever today can bring.”

Mac Moore/Lawrence Sports

Lawrence’s Andie Garrett receives a hug from her brother, who is wearing a shirt that reads “ANDIE” with her photos of his sister on it, after the 6A girls race of the state championship cross country meet at Rim Rock Farm.

Garrett also dodged the question of whether her and her teammates appreciate Kucza’s choice of old twangy love ballads.

Instead, she pointed to a certain song from another one from a similar era as Twitty’s heyday in the 60s and 70s. It’s a song that the girls team looked forward to playing during the ride back from events.

“We listen to American Pie on the way home,” Garrett said. “For nine minutes straight, we all sing the song.”

Garrett said it started out with one teammate requesting it, but quickly it became a ritual that she and the team cherish. It’s an experience she didn’t realize she’d miss until finished up running the Rim Rock Farm course for the eighth and final time on Nov. 1 during the 6A state championship meet.

“That’s a nice, fond memory,” Garrett said, before hinting at how the team might feel about her coach’s musical selections. “Otherwise, yes, it is country music.”

Mac Moore/Lawrence Sports

Lawrence’s Andie Garrett runs past the bridge leading to Cemetery Hill during the 6A girls race of the state championship cross country meet at Rim Rock Farm.

While Garrett was left thinking about all those fond memories of the past, Schwartz has already started looking toward the future after his finish.

Of the six runners to cross the finish line before Schwartz, three were seniors and three were juniors like himself. Blue Valley Northwest junior Jacob D’souza tops the list of 6A returners next year. D’souza won the state title with a time of 15:42.50.

Schwartz picked off a pair of juniors to earn his spot in seventh, while he was just a few seconds behind two more juniors. Junction City’s Anthony Testa took fifth at 16:03.08 while Shawnee Mission West’s Kallan Horveath took sixth at 16:06.43.

Schwartz plans to catch up with not only Testa and Horveath, but he hopes to put himself in the conversation to prevent D’souza from repeating as 6A state champion.

“That’s definitely the goal, is to chase him and not let anybody behind me get to me,” Schwartz said. “So yeah, definitely a goal to get top three at state next year.”