Submitted Photo Rugby’s Evyn Jacobsen, shown running at Devils Lake, is ranked third in the state in Class B girls’ cross country.

RUGBY – There’s something about dynasties and high school cross country that just go together in North Dakota. The state held its first multi-class championships in the sport for boys in 1966, and first allowed girls to compete in 1979. In those 57 years of boys’ competition, just ten schools have won a state title. Several girls’ programs have proven just as dynastic with only nine schools crowned champions.

Top among them is Bowman County. The boys’ program has 18 state titles and is the three-time defending state champion. The girls’ program won 25 of 27 state titles from 1979-2005. Both squads are currently No. 1 in the state coaches’ poll.

Others to have strangle held the boys’ sport include New Town, with 17 state championships, and Raleigh St. George, who have eight.

Hillsboro/Central Valley won seven straight girls’ titles from 2012-2018.

Then there’s Rugby, who are quietly building a program to rival their peers. The Panthers’ boys won state titles in 2009 and 2011. In between the boys’ championships, the girls’ team won their first state title in 2010.

The girls are also the last team to win the Class B state title, having won four straight championships going back to 2019. With all but one member of last year’s team returning, including top-five finishers Amelia Shepard and Hannah Senechal, the squad likes their chances for a fifth straight win.

Last year’s state runner-up Bowman County has other ideas. The Bulldogs already defeated the Panthers once this year at the Mandan Kiwanis Invitational on Sept. 7, and they boast two runners in the top ten of the most recent coaches poll. Rugby will get their chance at revenge when they host their annual invitational on Saturday, Oct. 7.

“Bowman County is of course our biggest challenger,” said Rugby head coach Bill Jansen. “Of course, they beat us down at the meet in Mandan. Every team is a challenge though, and on any given day, your kids aren’t all going to run well. Hopefully they do.”

Other teams that will challenge Rugby include Hillsboro, Central Class and Kindred.

The boys’ team, who finished fifth at the state meet last year, lost their top runner from a year ago in Austin Dibble, they return seven of the nine other runners from the squad including freshman Brayden Green.

“I ran just about 500 miles during the summer,” said Green. “I think it was him [Coach Jansen] motivating us to run miles over the summer. What really helps is having teammates and a coach who puts you in the right setup.”

When Jensen began coaching 26 years ago, he found a program fairly well established. In the ten years before his arrival, Rugby had five third place finishes at the state meet. They also were fourth one year, and fifth once.

The girls first placed on the podium in 1990. The boys debuted in 1993.

“I picked up where the previous coach left off. I didn’t come into a program that wasn’t already good,” said Bill Jansen.

According to Jansen, the key to what makes a good cross-country runner is having a high pain threshold and being able to handle some kind of suffering during the competition. Without substitutions, the runners are responsible for their own race, especially when things don’t go well.

“Sometimes you’re going to have to run through some pain and some of those types of things,” said Jensen. “I would say for a cross country runner, wanting to train is key, of course. But not everybody wants to run miles and cross country doesn’t have a ball or anything to play with.”

It’s a tough sell.

It’s even tougher to consistently find kids who not only want to but have the talent to compete among the state’s best. To be able to do so year in, year out puts Rugby in rarefied air among Class B programs.

“We’re not a big enough area where you just reload. A lot of the times you have hunt down kids who want to run,” said Jensen.

That can mean coaxing girls off the volleyball team or boys off the football team. Occasionally, kids can compete in more than one sport if it means the difference between running or not. Jensen also coaches track and field, and he spends time in the spring recruiting kids as well.

Sometimes peer pressure is the best recruiting method with kids nudging their teammates in other sports.

Once on the team, the athletes need to quickly develop a racing mindset.

“I try to preach running the race against the kids they are running against and not really worrying about time,” said Jensen. “We don’t think about it until the race is over.”

Instead, the focus is spent on ensuring runners are in the top five or top in individual races, so that when they run at meets like state, they are confident they can compete among the best.

“Sometimes you’re going to have test yourself and it may go well, it may not,” said Jensen. “You may do well and be able to hold on for the whole race. Or it may go horribly wrong, and you find out that ‘Oh boy, I went out way too fast. I’m going to have to go a little bit softer and try to come back’ with is hard on good runners.”

Brooklyn Bartsch is one of three seniors in the program and said the family-like atmosphere among the girls contributes to the team’s success.

“We have a lot of good girls on our team, and that helps at practice and meets when you’re all competing,” said Bartsch. “Our team supports and pushes each other.”

Bartsch recalls one year where all the girls gave each other haircuts on the bus ride home after winning state.

“I’ll never forget that. It was one of our seniors’ ideas at the time. And then we were like, if we win, we’re going to cut each other’s hair. And it happens.”