After every race, Wright City Cross Country Coach Sue Wright goes through her  team’s results and puts a star next to impressive results.

Wright “starred” every runner’s times at last week’s district race at Warrenton, leaving the veteran coach more than pleased with her team’s performance.

Three of those runners — Erin Tomschin, Jake Mueller and Stephon Norwood — qualified for the Class 3 state meet Saturday at Jefferson City’s Oak Hills Golf Course.

The Wildcats moved up from Class 2 this season, leaving Wright even more impressed with her trio of runners.

Tomschin finished second overall with a time of 21 minutes, 33.3 seconds.

“I knew she would qualify, so I’m not surprised by that,” Wright said. “She had a strong race and after moving up a class, it’s absolutely awesome. All of her hard work showed up last weekend. There was so much unknown going into the race, though, so I can’t say I knew she would finish second. She’s just a driven kid. I think she probably would have been in the same spot in Class 2, as well.”

Tomschin finished 108th in Jefferson City as a sophomore, and finished 67th last season.

Wright believes those races will give Tomschin a much-needed edge as she battles girls from bigger schools.

“You can’t teach experience, and she knows how everything goes up there,” Wright said. “She looked really strong last weekend, and I hope her showing at state is strong and that she is close to the top 25.”

Wright couldn’t help but smile while talking about Mueller’s district performance.

The senior had been a topic of Wright’s all season.

“Jake has just a great attitude and he’s going to experience something he hasn’t experienced before, so that’s great,” Wright said. “He’s a great role model for everyone on the team. He’s always had it in him and I just couldn’t always get it out of him. But now I think he’s there, and that’s only going to benefit him in track.”

Mueller narrowly qualified for state, beating St. Charles’ Logan Brunson by three seconds for the 15th and final spot.

Junior Stephon Norwood finished 11th in 18:39.6, 13 seconds ahead of Mueller.

“Stephon has a huge amount of talent, and I don’t think he realizes how good he really is,” Wright said. “I Iove him to death because he has a great attitude. He’s really worked hard and he’s part of a great team we had this year.”

If Tomschin was a steady and expected qualifier, Mueller and Norwood were pleasant surprises.

“I wasn’t sure if we’d have any guys make it out,” Wright said. “I knew we were right in the mix between 12th and 20th. I told them it was all mental at this point, and I’m just tickled about all the boys’ performances at districts.”

Overall, the Wright City boys finished fifth as a team.

Zoe Pezold (29th), Ashley Schulte (35th) and Maryanna Hale (36) also ran for the girls team, but the Wildcats didn’t have enough runners to qualify for the team race.

“It was just a great group of kids this year,” Wright said. “Hopefully these seniors have set the bar so the younger kids know what to expect.”