Olathe West boys win program’s first-ever state title

For the sixth time since 2020, the Olathe West cross country team won a Class 6A state championship.

However, this year, it was the boys bringing home the coveted hardware from Rim Rock Farm. After the Olathe West girls won five-straight state titles from 2020-24, the boys made history a week ago.

On Oct. 31, the Owls won the program’s first championship. They scored 83 team points, clipping Washburn Rural by just one point for the 6A title.

“I think the belief that they could do it, because there was no doubt that we could win and we didn’t even talk about winning the whole time,” Olathe West coach Kelsey Carbajo said. “It was definitely something we knew we could do if we put it all together and we ran as a team.”

The Owls and their fans had to wait a while after the race, because it was a dramatic finish. Once she found out her boys had won the title, Carbajo huddled her team up to bring the good news. A video of the celebration can be found on social media.

“It took a while to get results, because when it’s that close, they are double checking everything and making sure it’s all good,” Carbajo said. “Nothing had changed in the 20 minutes we waited, which felt more like an hour, but nothing had changed. Macy, my sister, came over with the phone and the results said completed, so we called it.”

Last year, Olathe West brought home a state trophy with a third-place finish at the 6A meet. The Owls scored 111 points at the 2025 meet, just 11 behind state champion Washburn Rural.

That came a year after the Owls placed sixth at the 2024 state meet, which was the first time they had qualified for state as a team.

The Owls returned two state medalists from last year’s team, so expectations were high beginning the season. However, Carbajo said her squad had to come together as a unit and run as a team, putting personal ambitions to the back burner if they wanted to reach their goals this fall.

“All season we had been talking about how we were putting together great practices and then we’d get to the meets and someone would have a great race but someone else wouldn’t,” Carbajo said. “It was a lot of what we called selfish running. As the season kept going on, we kept talking about team, team and team. We obviously had a great sub-state race and finished really well. It was one of the fastest races we had all run on average together. But, we just kept re-iterating that this thing is way more fun when we do it as a team, and we were able to pull it out at state.

“At the beginning of the year, everyone was fighting for a spot,” Carbajo added. “So, instead of racing for the Owl on the chest, which is what we talked about, we were racing us against our teammates. At the beginning of the season, we told them that if that’s how we are going to race, we are not going to reach our goals at the end of the season and we need to change our mindset to us against the world. I think they all started to get it and stated practicing like that, and it all came together.”

Olathe West headed to the state meet with some momentum after winning its 6A sub-state meet. The Owls scored just 47 points, winning by 43 points. They had three runners in the top 10 at the meet.

At state, Olathe West had three medalists this year. Leading the Owls was senior Archer Brewer, who finished fifth overall in a time of 15:50.8 – just four seconds behind Blue Valley’s Carter Moser – the individual runner-up.

Junior Lincoln Allen was the next Owl to cross the finish line. He placed eighth overall, running the 5K race in a time of 16:04.68.

Fellow junior River Cheney was the other Owl to earn a state medal. Cheney finished 19th in 16:34.98. 

“I think the most impressive race came from River Cheney,” Carbajo said. “He’s had some ups and downs, but he just really laid it all out there. I actually called our assistant coaches and told them River is a state placer – that’s incredible. He’s had sibling run in our program, but to watch him from a freshman until now is really special because he is totally bought into what we are trying to do. He made it happen.”

The other two scoring runners for Olathe West were sophomores Archer Brown and Anthony Petelin. They finished 30th and 55th, respectively.

Also competing for the Owls were senior James Merfen (63rd) and junior Daniel Trubiroha (68th).

“Our game plan was be conservative at the beginning and fight at the end,” Carbajo said. “When we came through the first mile, it was exactly what we had talked about doing. As the race progressed, you could tell they were fighting and getting people. We talked about winning the next half mile, and breaking the race up like that, I could tell that we were moving up. Once I saw them at the two-mile mark, I thought wow, we are moving. Then, they were determined to fight and be hunters at the end.”