Esfeld repeats as WAC Runner of the Year

Aside from the team bonding and running meets, cross country can sometimes be viewed as a lonely sport, one in which each individual is superbly motivated to run countless miles for trainng to battle over a 5-kilometer course.

During the 2021 fall Kansas cross country season, it was more evident than usual that Great Bend junior Kaiden Esfeld had as much self-motivation as any coach would want from a runner.

Since he made the splash onto the high school scene as a freshman in 2019, Esfeld has established himself as one of the premier distance runners in western Kansas, and is now attempting to expand that to a statewide reputation.

He enhanced that recently when he captured the 2021 Western Athletic Conference boys’ cross country title at Mariah Hills Golf Course, defending his 2020 crown and winning against the same runner-up, Garden City’s Devin Chappel, as he had done the year before.

This year, Esfeld traversed the up-and-down hills at Mariah with a time of 16:30.10, easily out-pacing his Garden City opponent, Chappel, by just more than 30 seconds. He leads the 5-runner all-WAC first team selections based upon the finish at the conference meet.

But it hasn’t been business as usual for Esfeld and the boys’ cross country program. The Panthers, despite having a girls’ WAC championship team this year, have just two varsity runners so they are unable to field enough runners to compete for team championships.

“To win WAC again feels great,” Esfeld said in a recent telephone interview. “I think this year (at Mariah Hills) there were more difficult hills to run than last year (Yucca Ridge Golf Course in Liberal). And, it was a lot windier.”

Esfeld said that one of the Panther runners was injured early on and has not been able to compete. Two others are still working their way into running times that are competitive on the varsity level, so they have remained running in junior varsity meets most of the season.

At the Oct. 23 Class 5A regional in Great Bend, Esfeld won the individual title with a time of 16:29.13 to win by more than 20 seconds to earn another trip to the Oct. 30 state meet at 4-Mile Creek Resort near Augusta.

“Not having a team to run with, and to train with, has been very hard to stay motivated and push myself,” Esfeld said. “If you have teammates, they are there to pick you up if you don’t feel like running. They motivate you to do better and I’ve missed that this year.”

Esfeld is not sure what has created the lack of interest in the Great Bend boys cross country, citing a general lackadaisical attitude among many of his peers, not just in sports but in all areas of school.

“I think there are just a lot of issues out there for our generation,” Esfeld said. “Some find an easy sport to get by, and in some other sports they cut back. There seems to be a general lack of interest and enthusiasm.”

Esfeld cited the 2020 year in which the COVID-19 pandemic struck nationwide and caused most high schools to shut down during the spring sports season and also created a summer where many off-season conditioning and workouts were also suspended.

“When you don’t have those sports in middle school to try and see which ones you like, then it becomes more difficult to try them in high school,” Esfeld said.

Despite all those challenges, Esfeld continues to run, to train and to excel both in spring track and in fall cross country. He was the WAC Boys Track and Field Athlete of the Year for the spring of 2021.

He has lost only one race this fall, that coming at the Buhler Invitational that saw many of the state’s elite runners competing. His wins, in addition to the WAC, have come at the Wichita-Bishop Carroll Invitational, the Allie T. Invitational at Wichita State University, the Hesston Swather Invite and his own school’s Great Bend Invitational.

Esfeld’s dedication takes on that added aura that he’s doing most of this on his own with the guidance of Coach Lyles Lashley.

“It does add a lot to it by the hard work and seeing it pay off,” said Esfeld. “I’m working toward some kind of enjoyment, slowly convincing myself that whether or not there is a team, there is still a lot reason to run and work hard.”

His first two years in Class 5A at the state championship resulted in a 31st (freshman) and 18th (sophomore) finish and he has set his sights on a top 10, perhaps even a top 3, finish this fall.

Away from the training rigors of running, Esfeld enjoys woodshop and manufacturing classes at Great Bend High School.

“I really enjoy woodshop as it lets me work with my hands and working with things like that I can make some cool stuff,” he said. “I also like production and engineering and the business side that involves mechanical pieces.”

2021 WAC Championship Team Standings

	Team	Points
1	Garden City	30
2	Dodge City	34
3	Liberal	78
4	Hays	98
5	Great Bend	N/S

All-WAC Boys Cross Country

Boys Runner of the Year: Kaiden Esfeld, Great Bend
Boys Coach of the Year: Krista Linenberger, Garden City