Rim Rock Farm in Lawrence was the site of several personal record times for Manhattan High cross country runners at the regular meet their earlier in the season. That was also the case on Saturday for at least one member of the team.

But setting new PRs wasn’t enough to hand the state title to either the boys or girls team, despite having several top runners.

The MHS boys brought home seventh place in state with a score of 185 points, while the girls earned third with 105 points.

Sophomore Daniel Harkin was again the top boy runner for MHS, earning second place with a time of 15:55.10, out of 103 runners. On the girls’ side senior Clara Mayfield again led MHS, ending in third place out of the 100 participants with a time of 18:52.00.

“I feel really good about how I ran this season,” Mayfield said, “I don’t have any regrets about any of the meets and I really look forward to continuing running I’m also really proud of how the team ran and especially at state. We definitely gave it our all and I’m so happy to have won third.”

Despite activities to get ready for their warm-up and their pre-run activities, some of the runners got together and played several rounds of “Heads Up.”

The boys’ first race was at 11 a.m. MHS’ team consisted of seven runners and two alternates. The other runners were junior Matthew Pickering, senior Carson Gros, sophomore Sean Anderson, freshman Ben Mosier, sophomore Gavin Erickson and junior Luke Wichmann. The two alternates were freshman Max Bowyer and junior Ian Percival. Pickering placed 47th with a time of 17:05.00 and Gros placed 51st with a time of 17:08.40.

“I did great, I got a new PR,” Anderson said “It was a great course, it was a great day to race. I just really left it all out there.”

The girls’ race was at 12:55 p.m. They also had seven runners and two alternates. Other runners were junior Ella Rosenkranz, senior Madeline Purdom, senior Emily Keeley, freshman Gaul, freshman Morgan Turner and freshman Rachel Corn. The two alternates were freshman Anna Culbertson and freshman Anika Nyp. In 16th place was Rosenkranz with a time of 19:58.00. Third for the team was Purdom in 28th with a time of 20:24.90.

“Running my first state meet was pretty awesome to experience. Everyone is very competitive and it’s a challenge,” Halle Gaul, freshman said. “There is a lot of anxiety involved in it, but when you have great friends it really helps… but I really enjoyed it and I thought we did a really great job.”

Overall most of the team is happy with the result. Girls got a plaque for earning third. Their average time was 20:13.

“I am happy and thankful to be on a team that made it up on the podium this year,” Keeley said. “I don’t know if it’s exactly how I’d expect it would be, but I guess these kind of things are never very predictable. So I’m just thankful that it ended the way it did.”

The boys’ team had an average time of 17:04. Some of the boys explained how some of their team members were sick and they were proud of them for pushing through it and giving their all.

When previously asked, the runners said they wanted to get to state and help be a part of it. Majority of the runners are satisfied and happy to say they got to state with hard work and a long journey.

“…it was a good season,” Harkin said. “Overall I didn’t really know what to expect this season. [I’m] just hoping I ran my best and I think I did at the end, so I’m very happy with my result.”