Series continues with a look at some of top Arrow girls runners since December of 1984
Editor's Note: Sports writer Roger Merriam is compiling a "20 Favorites" series highlighting some of his favorite athletes in a variety of high school sports since he started working at the Watertown Public Opinion in December 1984. The series is about northeastern South Dakota athletes, but some played at colleges all over the state and others have moved to other areas.
Bear with me here as the series has slowed down to a trickle with the fall high school sports season going full speed in September.
Compiling the list of the "20 Favorites" Watertown High School girls cross country runners since 1984 took some effort since distances, medal winners and other things have changed during these past 40 years with high school cross country in South Dakota.
The Arrows did place second in the state five times from 1993 through 2000 and won the state Class AA title in 2001.
Picking the top two runners on the list was the easy part. I tried my best to remember if runners competed in college, but my apologies for any I missed.
Are you ready? Here goes.
Up Next in 20 Favorites Series: Area Class A and B Boys Cross Country.
20. Others
Pretty much everybody who medaled in the state meet for Watertown is listed, but keep in mind that originally only 20 runners medaled and now 25 do. It might even have been fewer than 20 in the early-to-mid 1980s.
The list of runners who deserve mention — whether they officially medaled or not — include Darla Mason (17th in 1985), Kari Ehresmann (20th in 1986), Nicki and Shelly Stiner (21st and 23rd, respectively, in 1986), Kristina Beaudry (19th as an eighth-grader in 1992) and Heidi Thyne (23rd in 2009).
19. Molly Foley
There's a lot of Foleys who have enjoyed athletic success through the years with the Arrows, especially in track and cross country, and other Watertown club sports (hockey and soccer). Molly placed 14th in the 1990 state meet.
18. Sunny Maxwell
Maxwell gets a spot on this list with her 11th-place finish in the 1991 state Class AA meet.
17. Deidra Sinner
Sinner was one of Maxwell's teammates in 1991 and is listed one spot ahead because she did just that (placing 10th) in the 1991 state meet.
16. Cindy Coyle
Coyle's high school career ended with a fifth-place finish in the 1985 state meet. After placing 23rd in 1983, she missed the 1984 state meet because of injury. Since the timeframe basically started with the 1985 state meet, Coyle gets on this list.
More: DSU’s Anderson, NSU’s Berg compete in national track meets
15. Jada Anderson
Please don't cry foul. Anderson didn't medal in any state cross country meet during her high school career but that doesn't mean she wasn't a talented distance runner.
As a senior in 2018, she earned All-Eastern South Dakota Conference honors by placing 11th before having her bid to medal in the state meet come up short when she became entangled with another runner and suffered a gash on her shin. She wasn't able to complete the race.
That wasn't the end. Anderson went on to run cross country and track for Dakota State University and even qualified for the women's marathon in the NAIA Track and Field Championships in 2021.
14. Brittney Parmer
We're starting a list of two-time state place winners now and it opens with Parmer, who seems to me was also real successful in track if not other sports. In cross country, she placed 17th in the 1994 state meet and 19th in 1995.
13. Taylor Redlin
Redlin enjoyed a successful high-school career with the Arrows that included a 21st-place finish in 2013 and a 12th-place finish in 2012. It took nine years after Redlin's placing in 2012 for Watertown to have another state place winner.
12. Mary Foley
Here's another Foley, Molly's niece not sister. Mary medaled twice in the state meet for the Arrows, placing ninth in 2002 and 19th in 2003.
Foley later ran at Creighton University.
11. Ashley Engels
The only cross country picture I could find of Ashley was as a freshman on the 2001 Watertown state championship team. Looking at it, I just wasn't 100 percent sure it was the same Ashley I knew, the one who was a varsity regular for the Arrow girls basketball team for at least four years.
Legendary WHS track and cross country coach Vic Godfrey set me straight. It was.
Engels placed 18th in the state meet as a eighth-grader in 2000 and added a 20th-place finish as a freshman on the state title team.
10. Karle Jacobs
Another talented runner on the 2001 state champions was Jacobs, who placed 14th in the state meet that fall. That came a year after she placed 17th in 2000.
20 Favorites Links: Links to the stories highlighting the best northeastern South Dakota athletes since 1984
9. Carrie Mueller
We'll just keep going with 2001 state-championship team runners and that includes Mueller, whose fourth-place finish in 2001 paced the Arrows,. She took 15th in 2000.
8. Caitlin Hiedeman
Hiedeman not only medaled twice at state, she recorded two top-10 finishes. Caitlin took third in 1999 and eighth in 2002.
The 2004 WHS graduate was originally slated to run at Augustana, but married fellow WHS athletic standout Ryan Berry and gave birth to a baby boy Carson. She then went to SDSU, where Ryan would eventually serve as the football team's quarterback, and eventually mixed motherhood with cross country and track running with the Jackrabbits.
Links to All "20 Favorites": Links the stories highlighting the best northeastern South Dakota athletes since 1984
7. The Dugans (Katie and Kelly)
The Dugans could run a little. Oldest sister Katie placed eighth in the 1994 state Class AA meet and younger sister Kelly nearly matched her by recording a ninth-place finish in the 2000 state meet.
I know Kelly later ran at the University of Mary in Bismarck (N.D.). Not sure on Katie.
6. The McElroys
This is going to take some time to explain all this. Jerry McElroy was a long-time teacher and coach in Watertown before retiring in the early 1990s. He coached the boys' cross country team.
That brings us to his grandson Owen, who ran for a year at WHS, and then later married Colorado native Jenn McElroy, who never competed as a runner in high school but is now Watertown High School's head cross country coach. The family has become avid runners, including daughters Kate and Grace. Owen ran the Boston Marathon in 2022.
More: Watertown's Owen McElroy one of 28,000 runners to compete in 126th Boston Marathon
The real story here, at least for the purpose of this article, is the two daughters. Kate, only a freshman, is already a two-time state place winner. She took 15th in 2021 and 25th last October.
And if you've been paying attention you know that Grace, a seventh-grader, has opened her high school cross country career with a bang so far this fall. There's more to come for the two sisters.
5. Alyssa Rudebusch
Rudebusch definitely earned this high ranking (probably more) by becoming a three-time state place winner for the Arrows in the 1990s.
She placed 18th in 1993 and sixth in 1994 before closing our her prep career by placing 16th in 1998.
4. Tessa Stoltenburg
I keep telling the readers not to pay attention to the ranking order and you may wonder by Stoltenburg, only a two-time state place winner for the Arrows, is rated above Rudebusch. Let me explain.
Stoltenburg burst on the scene by placing 21st in the state meet as a eighth-grader in 2008 and followed that up by placing 15th as a freshman in 2009 before battling a number of injuries that dampened her high school career and also created issues with her long-distance running career in college.
She didn't stop. Her running career reached new heights in 2020 when she was one of 390 female marathon runners who competed in the U.S. Olympic Trials. I don't believe anybody else on this list can say that.
3. Jordan Hanson
Got to give Hanson some props here. She was a four-time state place winner for the Arrows from 2007-2010.
She finished 19th as an eighth-grader in 2007, 16th as a freshman in 2008, 11th as a sophomore in 2009 and 12th as a junior in 2010.
Hanson slipped to 85th as a senior when she was under the weather at the state meet.
1B. Tammy Harding
There's just no way to separate the top two runners on this list. They both deserve to share the top spot as, at least as far as I'm concerned, the greatest girls' cross country runners in Watertown High School history.
Harding came first (out of the two) and in many of her races. She was a five-time state place winner who captured state championships in 1990 and 1993. She also was third as a eighth-grader in 1989, sixth as a sophomore in 1991 and ninth as a junior in 1992. She even battled a lengthy illness and slipped from the 1990 top spot before finally winning another title in 1993.
She also was an assistant coach on the WHS' 2001 state champions and even coached at Great Plains Lutheran. Harding was inducted into the WHS Athletic Hall of Fame in 2009.
1A. Jessica Fox
Coach Godfrey told me the story of Fox running in beat-up tennis shoes rather than running shoes with spikes for better traction. There's a lot more too to the story.
Fox put her name at the top by winning state Class AA championships as an eighth-grader in 1996, sophomore in 1999 and junior in 1999. She also placed fourth as a freshman in 1997 and fifth as a senior in 2000.
She also battled foot injuries (stress fractures I believe) that curtailed her college career at Northern State, but Fox still enjoyed a very memorable running career.
Follow Watertown Public Opinion sports reporter Roger Merriam on X (formerly known as Twitter) @PO_Sports or email: rmerriam@thepublicopinion.com
This article originally appeared on Watertown Public Opinion: Series continues with a look at Watertown girls cross country
