JESSIE MCCABE
Five minutes and 35 seconds. That was the time running through Jenna Holland’s mind this past November as she stood ready at the starting line of the 2019 6A State Championship Girls Cross Country Meet. Surrounded by 99 of the state’s best runners, Jenna knew she may not be the fastest. But through the 3 miles of grass, gravel and hilly landscapes at Old Settlers Park, she also knew that was the time she needed to hit at the 1-mile mark. Doing so meant the Dragons would have a serious chance at winning the state championship.
As Jenna and her teammates finished the first mile, the stopwatch ticked at five minutes and 24 seconds. Two miles were left ahead of her.
It was moments like this that Carroll Cross Country were building up to over the last several months. Through every rigorous run, every morning practice and every stretch, sit-up and split, the boys and girls pushed themselves in every way imaginable to get to the 6A State Championship. This was their moment, and they were going to win.
The Road To Roundrock
During head coach Justin Leonard’s 16-year tenure, the girls’ cross country team has qualified for state 23 consecutive times, while the boys qualified for state 10 straight times. As far as wins go, the girls won seven state championships, including a four-peat from 2005 to 2008, while the boys won four. Neither team has won a state championship since the boys’ last win in 2014.
Coach Leonard knew there was a state championship-worthy team inside Carroll Cross Country — that award-winning mentality is partially why he was recognized by the Cross Country Coaches Association of Texas as 6A Cross Country Coach of the Year. It was more a matter of how badly his team wanted it, and what they were willing to do to get it.
Senior Katherine McElaney and her twin brother Tim have run for Carroll Cross Country since their freshman year. Katherine could pinpoint exactly why the team didn’t meet expectations from previous seasons while she was involved — it was because of their mentality.
“Our whole mentality was like, ‘Oh, we have another year,’” Katherine says. “That’s a really bad mentality to have going in. We’ve all experienced running terribly and losing first-hand. We haven’t won state in five years.”
This year, however, the mentality was different. They were hungrier. They were more determined. And frankly, they were sick of losing.
“That is what we thought of every single day,” Tim expresses. “We got tired of losing. We wanted to get back to winning.”
So over the summer, coach Leonard sat down with the team and broke down exactly what was needed to win a state championship. He discussed what their morning workouts would entail, how many meets they would have to win and what pace they would have to set, all the way down to the last hundredth of a second.
“We call it the ‘price tag mentality,’” coach Leonard says. “There’s a certain price it takes to win a state championship. Now it was up to them to meet that price tag.”
The Price Tag
Nate Lannen gets up early every morning for his 6:30 a.m. practice. It’s part of who he is as a team leader and No. 1 runner for the boys team. His times stand out, like the 14:46 he ran at the district meet, but when it comes to early morning workouts he’s not alone. The rest of the team is there with him three times a week for a rigorous workout together.
“A lot of our workouts would be pitch-black out at Bob Jones Park,” Nate says. “They were super hard workouts, but we knew that was going to set us apart.”
A senior and top-performing athlete for the program, Nate has run for the boys’ team since his freshman year, even when he was playing defensive end for Dragon Football. He committed himself fully to cross country his sophomore year and quickly sped ahead to becoming the team’s No. 1 runner. He’s also a finalist for “USA Today’s” Dallas Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year awarded in May, an honor he shares with fellow Carroll runners Solomon Chavez and Antonio Florcruz.
“Nate’s a warrior,” coach Leonard says. “He’s going to go out and give you everything he’s got. He’s the third runner I’ve ever coached that’s run varsity for all four years. He’s been a big staple in our program.”
On the girls’ side, Jenna Holland has also been part of the team since her freshman year. Coach Leonard says her challenge was getting her to realize her potential, but once she did, she had no trouble meeting it. Her fastest time this season was 17:03 at the Marcus I Invitational in Denton, and she places first among her team at nearly every meet. She was also named District Champion and First Team Academic All-State.
“Jenna is unbelievable,” coach Leonard says. “It’s just been a process for her. She had an unbelievable summer training. Coming into her senior year, her final year, we had to maximize her ability. To get her to that next level was a mentality deal.”
If Carroll Cross Country was competing, chances are these two were among the top athletes. But coach Leonard stressed that it wasn’t a solo act — it was a team sport, and every runner above and beneath Nate and Jenna were just as important as they were.
State Champs Together
From August to October, the Dragons dominated several of their meets. They took first place at the Javelina XC Meet in Kingsville, first place at the Marcus I Invitational and first place in the Carroll Cross Country 15th annual Southlake Invitational at Bob Jones Park. All this culminated into them winning state bids for the 10th consecutive year at the Region 1-6A cross country meet in October.
“It wasn’t an individual thing,” Jenna expresses. “It was everybody motivating everybody together. We all wanted to win for each other and coach Leonard. It wasn’t like anything I felt with any other team in the past three years.”
Fast forward to the state meet on Nov. 9. Jenna just passed the 1-mile marker, and her entire team was right behind her. Ultimately, the girls finished the meet with 45 points, with Jenna finishing seventh overall and first for the team at 17:54.63.
“I turned around at the finish line, and I saw the next three girls coming in and all of our team finishing,” she says. “I knew we won at that point. There wasn’t even a doubt in my mind.”
Later in the day during the boys' race, junior Solomon Chavez peeled ahead of the team, hitting the 1-mile marker at 4:49.26. Tim, meanwhile, noticed Nate was lagging behind due to dehydration, and it had him slightly concerned.
“Nate is usually our No. 1 runner,” Tim recalls. “The fact that he was behind was kind of worrying to me. That’s when I knew I really had to move for us to win. If our No. 1 wasn’t doing well, then I needed to do better for our team.”
The boys regardless edged into a win with 80 points, with Solomon finishing ninth overall and first for the team at 15:07.13. Tim placed third for the Dragons at 15:20.96, while Nate finished sixth at 15:44.40. Even though he felt he underperformed in the meet, Nate says he felt no shame. After all, the rest of his teammates were there to pick him up.
“Being No. 1 for two years and then having a meet like that, I was never the one depending on other people. I was always the one that had to be depended on,” he remarks. “I was just so humbled to have friends I could depend on, even when I was in a weak spot.”
When the boys and girls found out they won a state championship together for the first time in six years, they screamed, hugged each other, jumped and cried in joy. Coach Leonard says he was grateful to experience that win with them and witness their hard work pay off.
“My No. 1 thing that I enjoy the most is getting to sit back, watch the kids’ reaction and see the joy and excitement they have,” coach Leonard expresses. “That’s why I do this. You can’t replace that feeling a kid gets knowing that they’re the best. Those are memories they’re going to have with them for the rest of their lives.”
Beyond State
As if the state win wasn’t significant enough, the program’s top seven boys and girls also got to race against the nation’s fastest runners during the 16th annual Nike Cross Nationals. A meet coach Leonard calls “the Super Bowl for cross country,” only 400 out of 450,000 high school runners qualify for this prestigious annual meet held in Portland each December. It's so competitive that runners only have a 0.09% chance of qualifying.
In the 16 years Nike has held the event, the Carroll boys and girls qualified a respective 13 times. Coach Leonard says only one other school was represented more often than Carroll: Fayetteville-Manlius High School in New York.
“It’s a huge honor to be out there,” Coach Leonard says. “It’s a big deal.”
The boys placed 14th overall and the girls placed 20th overall at the meet, with Tim and Jenna placing first for their respective teams. And these students aren’t slowing down either, with several athletes competing in 800-to-3,200 meter dashes this track season.
For many seniors, this spring will be the last time they represent the Carroll Dragons. Nate and Jenna are among those graduating, with Nate looking to run for either Pepperdine or Furman University while Jenna is eyeing Vanderbilt University or The Naval Academy. And yet, Carroll Cross Country has high hopes for what 2020 will bring. After all, coach Leonard says part of the excitement comes from seeing who will give it their all the day of the meet.
“In our sport, there are no timeouts,” coach Leonard remarks. “There’s no redos, no playoff series. There’s just one day, and the time and date is set. Whoever performs best on that day is going to be the champion. That’s what makes it really special.”